Palo Alto, CA
Lunchtime talk at Stanford’s Graduate Program in Journalism. McClatchy Hall, Chafee Seminar Room 452. From 12:15 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Blog
‘The Conversation Starts Here’
George Monbiot on the environmental movement’s failure to reduce climate-warming emissions via national or international agreements:
To compensate for our weakness, we indulged a fantasy of benign paternalistic power – acting, though the political mechanisms were inscrutable, in the wider interests ...
The Best Books on Oil
The Wall Street Journal runs a weekly column in which an author lists the five best books on a particular subject. The Journal invited me to write the column this week. My five best books on oil are (drum roll…) Ida Tarbell’s The History of the Standard Oil Company, Anthony Sampson’s ...
Five Best Books on Oil
The Wall Street Journal
August 21, 2010
(The Wall Street Journal publishes a column every week in which an author lists the five best books on a particular subject. This is my list on oil.)
1. The History of the Standard Oil Company
By Ida M. Tarbell
McClure, Phillips, 1904
John D. Rockefeller’s ...
Sanctifying by Attacking
New York Magazine
How a mosque proposed for a grubby downtown street became more of a symbol than its opponents ever intended.
August 14, 2010
How does an icon get made? Back in the fifth century, the process was quite simple: A monk or artisan would depict Jesus or Mary or one of the saints. ...
Iconoclasm and the “Ground Zero Mosque”
My latest story, in New York magazine, focuses on the controversy over the so-called ground zero mosque. The piece draws on lessons of iconoclasm in the modern ...
Fresh Air Does Crude World
NPR’s always-excellent literary program, Fresh Air, features an interview with me today. Click here for audio and transcript.
The Ministry of Oil Defense
That’s the nifty headline Foreign Policy uses for my latest story about the connection between oil, war and American military spending. A key question the story asks is ...
The Ministry of Oil Defense
Foreign Policy
August 5, 2010
Shortly after the Marines rolled into Baghdad and tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein, I visited the Ministry of Oil. American troops surrounded the sand-colored building, protecting it like a strategic jewel. But not far away, looters were relieving the National Museum ...
A Big Win For Transparency
A last-second and little-noted victory for transparency–the financial regulation bill approved by Congress includes an amendment ...