Customer Reviews

Crude Reflections / Cruda Realidad: Oil, Ruin and Resistance in the Amazon Rainforest (English and Spanish Edition)

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One of the best insider views you'll get of the effects of oil spills on the daily life of people in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. Not only does Dematteis and Szymczak's book offers beautiful, but sometimes hard to look at, pictures, it also bears witness by including an extraordinary collection of testimonies about the day-to-day reality of the people affected by the pollution and whose suffering is often unknown. It includes as well facts about Chevron's illegal oil-drilling practices, health issues and the ongoing trial against Chevron taking place in Lago Agrio in Ecuador's Amazon region.

"Crude reflections" offers a moving portrait of the lives destroyed by unethical oil drilling operations; in addition, it contains beautiful pictures of the pristine Amazon, of what it should and could be if the company was to be held accountable for the terrible damages they've caused and was to clean it up. I wish this book was in every library and school around he country so it might bring awareness of the beautiful land huge corporations like Chevron are willing to destroy to increase their profits and satisfy their shareholders. Thank you for such a wonderful book!

Dematteis and Szymczak do a remarkable job of exploring the deep reaches of the Amazon rainforest where Texaco and Chevron have extracted oil and, in the process, left a trail of environmental destruction and human misery. The oil companies deny their responsibility for the results of their activities, but the photos, and personal stories told in these pages, put a totally different face on those denials. One look at the faces of the indigenous peoples who have suffered for decades and at the burning waste oil pits and you'll be ready to swear off oil forever.