Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, by Rachel Maddow (author, narrator)

Random House Audio, October 2019

This is a fascinating and scary book about what the oil and gas industry has done, to the world in general, to Russia in particular, and in lesser ways to the USA.

Discovering the great natural wealth of large deposits of oil and natural gas ought to be a great boon to a country--and it can be. If it has a strong, functional government committed to the national welfare, not just the private wealth of the ruling class, it can be. Even countries that aren't at all democratic, such as a number of the Middle Eastern oil powers, have managed to raise the income, education, and health of much of the population, not just the privileged ruling classes.

But others haven't. Maddow first introduces us to Equatorial Guinea, and the complete lack of benefit to the economic lower classes there, while the ruling family and their friends rake in the billions.

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder and One Man's Fight for Justice, by Bill Browder (author), Adam Grupper (narrator)

Recorded Books, February 2015

Bill Browder, grandson of the former head of the American Communist Party, and son of a prominent mathematician, as a teenager cast around for ways to rebel against his family. It took him a while to conclude that the obvious way was to become a capitalist, and a little bit longer to realize he had to put his considerable brains to work learning what he needed to know to do that. Once he did that, though, he overcame the obstacles he'd created for himself, and, in due course, wound up, by now a British citizen, the most successful foreign investor in Russia.

Then he started asking awkward questions about seemingly undervalued Russian companies, and what was really going on with them.