Blog

Just a quick note to mention that my new book, Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil, will be published in September. The early reviews are encouraging. Publishers Weekly says Crude World is “heartfelt and beautifully crafted.” Kirkus describes it as “breathless, ...  (Read more)

In the summer of 1992 a young Bosnian doctor was infiltrated into Srebrenica, a desperate enclave that was besieged by Serb troops. Nedret Mujkanovic served as Srebrenica’s only surgeon, working in 19th-century conditions because the enclave had little medicine or medical equipment; he often ...  (Read more)

If you read the New York Times’ coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years you would have noticed the remarkable work of Dexter Filkins, one of the best war correspondents of our times. Dexter has written an amazing book about his experiences, The Forever War, and next week I’m ...  (Read more)

In the debate about Iraq, it has become a convention in hawkish American circles to blame the Bush administration for bad execution of a good idea (i.e. invading a large Middle Eastern nation). “Generation Kill,” a powerful new HBO miniseries, offers a reality-based counter-narrative that ...  (Read more)

If you’re thinking “Robert Mugabe,” you may be wrong. How about Teodoro Obiang? I wrote a short piece about him for Slate.

In November I will be a Regents Lecturer at UC Berkeley, which means, among other things, that I will give several talks. Come one, come all!

Oct. 29: “The Amazon v. Big Oil: In Ecuador, Chevron Faces Judgment Day.” 4-5:15 pm. 101 Morgan Hall.

Nov. 1: “From Saddam to Muqtada: A Writer’s ...  (Read more)

Back in 1996, Vanity Fair published a lengthy excerpt from my book, “Love Thy Neighbor.” I never received an electronic copy of the excerpt, so it wasn’t posted on this site (or anywhere on the web). In the past few months I received a number of enquiries about the excerpt, because ...  (Read more)