USA Today Forever

I have never met Steve Weinberg, who reviews books for USA Today, but I now owe him a beer or two. Weinberg has written a wonderful review of Crude World. The review says, “Thousands of books about the oil culture exist in English, and thousands more in other languages. Maass’ book is in a class by itself, as he constructs his relentless indictment on a foundation of first-rate reporting and superb writing.” It’s particularly great to hear that from a writer like Weinberg, who has two oil books under his belt. He’s the author of a biography of Armand Hammer and, more recently, Taking on the Trust, about Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller.

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.