Saudi America

Bethany McLean is the co-author of the bestseller The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron with Peter Elkind. Her second book, which she co-authored with Joe Nocera, is All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis. Her most recent book is Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and lives in Chicago.

Named one of Vanity Fair's Eleven Nonfiction Books to Read this Fall

"McLean exposes the faulty foundation not only of our supposed energy independence, but of the very desire for it.... The sloganeering of 'drill, baby, drill,' and the false, geopolitically fraught hope of energy independence it implies, ignores these basic business, economic, and existential human realities. In exposing them, McLean offers hope for a more reasonable discussion, a more sustainable and profitable industry, and, perhaps, a more integrated energy policy." -800-CEO Reads, Editor's Choice

"As journalist Bethany McLean sketches with clarity and concision in this book, the shale revolution has had profound effects on the US, creating jobs and cutting energy costs, but many of the claims made for it have been overblown.... Unlike some who have taken a skeptical view of the shale industry, McLean is not trying to debunk it-those who have tried have been made to look foolish by its success in recent years-but she does urge us to be cautious about being too trusting." -Financial Times

"Bethany McLean explores fracking's nuanced success, but also cautions that this energy revolution is not the country's golden ticket to energy independence." -NPR's Marketplace

"McLean, who was a co-author of the bestseller The Smartest Guys in the Room, has tapped into the recent history of the US oil and gas boom. She describes geology in plain English, recounts the rise and fall of one of the country's most flamboyant shale gas tycoons, and studies the political consequences of a United States that is far less dependent on oil imports than it was just a decade ago." -The Washington Post

"Who cares about another crooked, over-compensated CEO? Bethany McLean does. She is the co-author of the brilliant dissection of the Enron scandal The Smartest Guys in the Room, and has written a slim book called Saudi America for Columbia Global Reports. The book suggests