Episode 21: Oil Wars w/ Adam Hanieh

Adam Hanieh joins us to discuss the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, how the petrodollar system shaped US-Gulf relations, the role of oil in US foreign policy, the economic rise of China, and what the war on Iran means for the climate crisis.

Texts discussed: Crude Capitalism, Venezuela’s Oil in the Grip of US Empire. Also check out Hanieh’s latest in the FT, The Coming Global Food Crisis.

Adam Hanieh is Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute and Professor in the Development Studies Department at SOAS, University of London. His current research looks at the interplay of fossil fuels, capitalism, and the climate emergency, with a particular focus on the Gulf states of the Middle East. He is the author of four books, including Money, Markets, and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2018), which won the 2019 British International Studies Association IPE Group Book Prize and Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso 2024), which was co-winner of the 2025 Best Book by an International Scholar, Global and Transnational Section of the American Sociological Association.

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Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

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