- About the Book

The Oil and the Glory:
The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune
on the Caspian Sea
by Steve LeVine
Published by Random House
(ISBN 0375506144, 496 pages, 16 pages of photos, hard cover, $27.95)
Available through this site or directly from the publisher:
http://www.randomhouse.com

When the Soviet Union crumbled, oil in the Caspian region -- a remote, rather barbaric, highly romanticized region -- was accessible to the west for the first time in history. The race was on, as Big Oil and all manner of adventurers, dealmakers, and political operatives traveled to one of the most corrupt and dangerous neighborhoods on earth to embark on a new Great Game with massive geopolitical and strategic implications. Fortune hunters sought fortunes, oil companies built an unprecedented, dystopian oil city on the surface of the Caspian Sea, and the American government pushed for the longest pipeline ever built -- one that would lead to a major geopolitical victory over Russia and Iran.

The Wall Street Journal's Steve LeVine takes us from the pipeline builders and oil extractors battling the elements in a primitive land, to the boardrooms of Chevron and BP, to meetings between corrupt officials and U.S. dealmakers on the make, providing a window into the high-stakes, transcontinental maneuvering that occurs when Big Oil, geopolitics, and massive corruption overlap.

Praise for The Oil and the Glory:

"The deft political portrait of this strategic, volatile area makes the book essential reading, but it's LeVine's fine writing that makes it a pleasure."
-- Portfolio Magazine

"A complex story rendered comprehensible, with much drama and intrigue."
-- Kirkus Reviews

Minds in Distress deals with the new mental-emotional struggles and neuroses befalling tens of millions of people, and how much of this instability is being stimulated by the culture we live in, rather than through innate flaws to be found in people.

Part 1 first leads the reader into an understanding of his evolved mind, the limitations his contemporary brain places upon his life, and the sorts of difficulties the human mind encounters in its sometimes hapless efforts to adjust to the rapid rate of change which befalls humans today. It goes on to discuss the bases for the absolute uniqueness of every person, and the great importance this brings to the need for each individual to fully understand himself. Recommendations are made for assessing mental-emotional well-being differently than now occurs through the potentially haphazard methods mental health professionals use to identify mental-emotional illness today. The person is encouraged to develop his own, independent view of the status of his mental well-being.

Part 2 deals with the co-effects of ancient instinctual drives and modern conditioned behaviors in shaping the human experience today, and how these forces are combining with the culture to produce mental distress and illness. A spotlight is placed upon difficulties occurring in the realms of human perception, romance and marriage, an increasing flood of opposing desires in people, the growing tendency for individuals to allow their life to be guided by outside influences -- especially those of American capitalism, the loss of life satisfaction which results from the anxious pursuit of consumption, the epidemic of anger which has resulted from human confusion, and the neurotic obsession with self-promotion and personal specialness which has spread across the country. These chapters point to time-worn avenues for life satisfaction, and how these are becoming obstructed by severe stresses generated through modern lifestyles that do not serve the true needs of humans.

Part 3 first considers the overall status of Americans' mental health, then reveals the often problematic nature of the American mental health system to which people rush for solutions for their distress. After this, recommendations are made concerning the types of emotional distress people should be encouraged to deal with on their own behalf. Step-by-step, easy to follow approaches for gaining insight for, and dealing with, one's personal difficulties are outlined. These strategies are intended to take into account each person's unique nature, and to lead him in the direction of regaining life satisfaction through achieving new control over his existence, while removing deadly overstress.

The book's final chapter contains a brief analysis of, and potential prediction about, the future of the American society. It gives further emphasis to the fact that each person will do well to address the meaning and experience of the life he truly wants, and to consider that to some degree this may have to be achieved through detachment from the society that today gives direction to his existence.