Vultures' Picnic

Description

The bestselling author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy offers a globetrotting, Sam Spade-style investigation that blows the lid off the oil industry, the banking industry, and the governmental agencies that aren't regulating either. This is the story of the corporate vultures that feed on the weak and ruin our planet in the process-a story that spans the globe and decades. For Vultures' Picnic, investigative journalist Greg Palast has spent his career uncovering the connection between the world of energy (read: oil) and finance. He's built a team that reads like a casting call for a Hollywood thriller-a Swiss multilingual investigator, a punk journalist, and a gonzo cameraman-to reveal how environmental disasters like the Gulf oil spill, the Exxon Valdez, and lesser-known tragedies such as Tatitlek and Torrey Canyon are caused by corporate corruption, failed legislation, and, most interestingly, veiled connections between the financial industry and energy titans. Palast shows how the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and Central Banks act as puppets for Big Oil. With Palast at the center of an investigation that takes us from the Arctic to Africa to the Amazon, Vultures' Picnic shows how the big powers in the money and oil game slip the bonds of regulation over and over again, and simply destroy the rules that they themselves can't write-and take advantage of nations and everyday people in the process.

Author of the New York Times and international bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse, Palast is Patron of the Trinity College Philosophical Society, an honor previously held by Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde. "A cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes" (Jim Hightower, The Nation), Greg Palast turned his skills to journalism after two decades as a top investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering. Palast's reports appear on BBC's Newsnight and in Britain's Guardian, Rolling Stone and Harper's. Palast directed the US' government's largest racketeering case in history (that garnered a $4.3 billion jury award) and the investigation of the Exxon Valdez. Palast is recipient of the George Orwell Courage in Journalism Prize for his BBC television documentary, Bush Family Fortunes.

Palast's stories bite. They're so relevant they threaten to alter history. Palast is exactly what a journalist is supposed to be - a truth hound, doggedly independent, undaunted by power. - Chicago Tribune Courageous reporting The real Sam Spade - Nation It is a breath of fresh air - I read it in one sitting - Tribune It's a genuinely life-changing book - funny, pacy, intelligent and ultimately very moving. If you want to know how the world really works, read this. - Daily Telegraph