Law of the Jungle

This is an interesting story, but a hard one to tell. At times “Law of the Jungle” reads like a novel (but nonfiction), other times like a radio story, but other times it feels a little disjointed. The author clearly did his research, and while he knows the story inside and out, I had a hard time putting the stand-alone sentences into order. At times, too, I had to wonder about the author’s potential bias. He paints the big oil companies like “bad guys,” which in many ways they could be, but he doesn’t really try to tell their side objectively. The book just seems to show both oil companies and lawyers at their worst. Really, I’m more interested in environmental issues, and human rights in general, than lawyers showing off.

When Texaco, later absorbed by Chevron, started taking oil from Ecuador, the whole area became polluted and the people living there suffered horrible health problems. I wish the author had explained the drilling process more, and how so much oil could leak all over the place. It seems like a lot of waste, unless it was only that, a waste product, and they didn’t do a good job containing it. But couldn’t they have done a cleaner job? Then, yes, it is an expensive cleanup, including medical costs, but, isn’t there an amount that would have justly covered this? The lawyers, and everyone else involved, shouldn’t think about the money they can make off the tragedy of exploitation, but in making up to these people and their land some of what they have lost, because some of that cannot even be recovered. (Can you tell I’m not a lawyer?) I found the one-word chapter titles that do little to help guide the reader, and I just couldn’t get through this one. That happens sometimes.

Note: I received a free copy of this title through BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review.