Opening in 2006 after ten years in the making, British Petroleum's $4 billionpipeline, running from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, has becomean icon of globalization. Over a thousand miles long, it weaves a routearound the Russian and Iranian borders, transporting oil and gas to hungryWestern markets.<br /><br />Bringing to bear a wealth of expertise on their subject, the authors look at thereality behind the pipeline's gleaming façade. Traveling along its route, theytrace the shadowy forces and institutions behind it, meeting whistle-blowers,security forces, local villagers and fishermen; in doing so, they expose a storyof cracked coatings, new arms races and displaced local communities. Theyexplore, too, the wider forces the pipeline represents, from state repression,investment banking and energy security, to environmental degradationand social movements. A compelling travelogue, <em>The Oil Road</em> explores thehidden history of an iconic project that is also a metaphor for our age.