Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil (Harcourt, 2007) is a book written by John Ghazvinian

John Ghazvinian

John Ghazvinian is an American journalist and historian. He was raised in London and Los Angeles, born in Iran and currently lives in Philadelphia. He is known for his writing on African oil politics as the author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil , an expose of the petroleum industry in...

 about the petroleum industry

Petroleum industry

The petroleum industry includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting , and marketing petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline...

 in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. The book was received well by critics, and garnered good reviews from both the Boston Globe and The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

. The book is based extensively on interviews, with representatives of multinational oil companies' views being compared and contrasted with those of politicians within Africa as well as the citizens of affected nations.
Jake Saltzman, the famed critic, gave the book 5 out of 5 stars.