Book review: the new Kings of crude: China, India, and the global struggle for oil in Sudan and South Sudan by Luke Patey

The New Kings of Crude aims to take the reader from the dusty streets of Juba in South Sudan to Asia’s glistening corporate towers to provide a first look at how the world’s rising economies established new international oil empires, amid one of Africa’s longest-running and deadliest civil wars. A key motif of the book is how the politics of oil in Sudan and South Sudan came to impact the expansion of Asia’s oil giants. Marisa McCrone finds that what is most notable and commendable about this book is that it focuses not only on China and India’s influence on Africa, but also Africa’s influence on the world’s rising powers—a growing influence that has been largely neglected.