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The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea
Random House
November 2007
On Sale: October 23, 2007
496 pages
ISBN: 0375506144
EAN: 9780375506147
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Remote, forbidding, and volatile, the Caspian Sea long
tantalized the world with its vast oil reserves. But
outsiders, blocked by the closed Soviet system, couldn’t get
to it. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and a wholesale rush
into the region erupted. Along with oilmen, representatives
of the world’s leading nations flocked to the Caspian for a
share of the thirty billion barrels of proven oil reserves
at stake, and a tense geopolitical struggle began. The main
players were Moscow and Washington–the former seeking to
retain control of its satellite states, and the latter
intent on dislodging Russia to the benefit of the West. The Oil and the Glory is the gripping account of this latest
phase in the epochal struggle for control of the earth’s
“black gold.” Steve LeVine, who was based in the region for
The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek,
weaves an astonishing tale of high-stakes political
gamesmanship, greed, and scandal, set in one of the most
opaque corners of the world. In LeVine’s telling, the
world’s energy giants jockey for position in the rich Kazakh
and Azeri oilfields, while superpowers seek to gain a
strategic foothold in the region and to keep each other in
check. At the heart of the story is the contest to build and
operate energy pipelines out of the landlocked region, the
key to controlling the Caspian and its oil. The oil pipeline
that resulted, the longest in the world, is among
Washington’s greatest foreign policy triumphs in at least a
decade and a half. Along the way, LeVine introduces such players as James
Giffen, an American moneyman who was also the political
“fixer” for oil companies eager to do business on the
Caspian and the broker for Kazakhstan’s president and
ministers; John Deuss, the flamboyant Dutch oil trader who
won big but lost even bigger; Heydar Aliyev, the
oft-misunderstood Azeri president who transcended his past
as a Soviet Politburo member and masterminded a scheme to
loosen Russian control over its former colonies in the
Caspian region; and all manner of rogues, adventurers, and
others drawn by the irresistible pull of untold riches and
the possible “final frontier” of the fossil-fuel era. The
broader story is of the geopolitical questions of the
Caspian oil bonanza, such as whether Russia can be a trusted
ally and trading partner with the West, and what
Washington’s entry into this important but chaotic region
will mean for its long-term stability. In an intense and suspenseful narrative, The Oil and the
Glory is the definitive chronicle of events that are
understood by few, but whose political and economic impact
will be both profound and lasting.
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