A gripping account of how the 50-year life of Nigeria has been shaped by the crude oil that flows from its Niger Delta, this chronicle is peopled with a cast of characters that is stranger than fiction—from the Area Boy gangsters of Lagos and the anti-imperialist militants in their swamp forest hideouts to the oil company executives in their office suites and a corrupt state governor who stashed a million dollars in cash in his west London penthouse. Part travelogue, part straightforward reportage, this cautionary tale for a world that runs on petroleum focuses on the chaos, violence, and politics surrounding oil in Nigeria. Revealing entanglements between Nigerian government officials and the global oil industry, this examination weaves an absorbing, illuminating, and often-surprising story.

Michael Peel is the legal correspondent and former West African correspondent for the Financial Times. He has contributed articles on West Africa to a variety of publications, including the Christian Science Monitor, the London Review of Books, and the New Republic.