celebrating the release of

The Oil Road - A Journey from the Caspian Sea to the City of London

from Verso Press

Anna Galkina and Mika Minio-Paluello (of the London based group PLATFORM) make a special appearance at City Lights to discuss the subject of their new book.

In a unique journey from the oil fields of the Caspian to the refineries and financial centres of Northern Europe, Platform tracks the concealed routes along which the lifeblood of our economy is pumped. The stupendous wealth of Azerbaijani crude has long inspired dreams of a world remade. From the revolutionary Futurism of Baku in the 1920s to the unblinking Capitalism of modern London, the drive to control oil reserves – and hence people and events – has shattered environments and shaped societies.

In The Oil Road, the human scale of village life in the Caucasus Mountains and the plains of Anatolia is suddenly, and sometimes fatally, confronted by the vast strangeness of the oil corporation BP. Pipelines and tanker routes tie the fraying social democracies of Italy, Austria and Germany to the repressive regimes of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. A web of financial and political institutions in London stitches together the lives of metropolis and village.

Anna Galkina (@annatation) shuttles between Russian activists and European investment banks, elucidating and challenging the financial flows into Arctic oil drilling. Previously she investigated oil-related corruption in Central Asia for Global Witness.

Mika Minio-Paluello (@mikaminio) is one of the authors of The Oil Road. Currently based between Cairo, London and Oakland, Mika is a sailor, beekeeper and writer who also provides support to communities resisting oil corporations.

Platform is a London-based arts, human rights and environmental justice organisation. Based on core values of solidarity, creativity and democracy, Platform uses art,  literature, activism and education to achieve long-term systemic change. We have been imagining  a world beyond oil for more than 30 years, and are trying to make it a reality.

visit: http://platformlondon.org/

What has been said of The Oil Road:

"★★★★★…The Oil Road opens the lid on the often-shady energy economy, weaving absorbing travel reportage into powerful investigative journalism…. If you want to know why oil matters, read this book." - Time Out (book of the week)  "

"An elegantly written travel book…will make you think the next time you fill the tank." – Financial Times 

"Beautifully written as well as formidably well-informed…A pleasure to read" - Neal Ascherson, author of Black Sea
"As global powers scramble for the last of the world's diminishing resources, comes this book – well researched and written with empathy, integrity and imagination. It is timely and much needed." Ahdaf Soueif, author of The Map of Love