Bibliograph

Great American outpost, dreamers, mavericks, and the making of an oil frontier, Maya Rao

Type

Label

Great American outpost, dreamers, mavericks, and the making of an oil frontier, Maya Rao

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 315-324) and index

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Great American outpost

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1000584368

Responsibility statement

Maya Rao

Sub title

dreamers, mavericks, and the making of an oil frontier

Summary

"As North Dakota became the nation's second-largest oil producer, Maya Rao set out in steel-toe boots to join a wave of drifters, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and criminals. With an eye for the dark, absurd, and humorous, Rao fearlessly immersed herself in their world to chronicle this modern-day gold rush, from its heady beginnings to OPEC's price war against the US oil industry. She rode shotgun with a surfer-turned-truck driver braving toxic fumes and dangerous roads, dined with businessmen disgraced during the financial crisis, and reported on everyone in between--including an ex-con YouTube celebrity, a trophy wife mired in scandal, and a hard-drinking British Ponzi schemer--in a social scene so rife with intrigue that one investor called the oilfield Peyton Place on steroids. As the boom receded, a culture of greed and recklessness left troubling consequences for investors and longtime residents. Empty trailers and idle oil equipment littered the fields like abandoned farmsteads, leaving the pioneers who built this unlikely civilization to reckon with their legacy. Part Barbara Ehrenreich, part Upton Sinclair, Great American Outpost is a sobering exploration of twenty-first-century America that reads like a frontier novel."--Inside jacket flap

Target audience

adult

Creator