Crude Interventions examines the military and economic policies of the Bush administration in oil-rich regions of the world. More precisely, it examines the socio-economic and human rights consequences of these policies, as well as those of recent US administrations and multinational energy companies, for the peoples of oil producing nations in the global South. With only four percent of the world's population, the United States consumes 25 per cent of global energy production. This thirst for energy has played a significant role in determining US foreign policy in recent decades. By focusing on the US's role in Iraq, Central Asia, West Africa, Colombia and Venezuela, Crude Interventions makes evident the connections between US energy interests, the war on terror, globalization, human rights abuses and other social injustices endured by those peoples of the South cursed with an abundance of the world's most sought-after resource.