Blowout in the Gulf

In this summary you will learn

• What led to the 2010 British Petroleum drilling platform accident in the Gulf of Mexico
• How the oil industry has used politics throughout its history
• How US policies profited the oil companies – but couldn’t prevent environmental disaster

getAbstract rating

Why you should read Blowout in the Gulf

Authors William R. Freudenburg and Robert Gramling are college teachers, and if you have a chance to take their classes, enroll right away. Professors of environmental studies and sociology, respectively, they are very informative, and they base their conclusions on well-reported facts. Their book links US energy policy to oil politics, corporate performance, risk management, and the technological and geological problems that led to the US’s largest peacetime offshore oil spill. The professors cover the oil industry’s history and the energy debate in a single, tightly packed volume, including significant accidents, their causes and the paltry penalties companies – especially British Petroleum – paid. The book contends that oil companies wield too much power over prices, policy and the environment. getAbstract considers this vivid story about these tremendously powerful, hugely profitable companies to be essential reading.

About the Authors

William R. Freudenburg is an environmental studies professor at the University of California. Robert Gramling is a sociology professor at the University of Louisiana.