Wars of Plunder - Philippe Le Billon

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Biographie:
Philippe Le Billon is a specialist on the linkages between resource extraction and armed conflict. With an MBA and PhD in geography, he worked for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in UN peacekeeping, advised several governments, and collaborated with major NGOs and research institutes, such as Global Witness and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is currently Associate Professor at the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.

'Le Billon's uncovering of the complexities involved in resource conflict makes this book a valuable contribution to the discussion of intrastate violence ... Highly recommended.' - Choice 'This impressive book will be a very significant contribution to its field. It does a remarkable job of summarizing a multifarious, and often complex, body of literature without oversimplifying it ... and reveals a prodigious amount of reading by the author as well as the breadth of field research he has pursued over many years.' - Dr Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Oxford University 'For anyone interested in war economies and what to do about them, this book is a real 'must-read'. From Angola to Cambodia, from oil to timber, the author draws on two decades of scholarly research and field experience to paint a remarkable picture of the complex resource-conflict nexus: concise, and yet nuanced and comprehensive.' - Gilles Carbonnier, professor of development economics at the Graduate Institute / Geneva and editor-in-chief of International Development Policy 'Le Billon has written a deep, nuanced, analytically rich exploration of the many ways that oil, diamonds, and timber are intertwined with violent conflict. This is an important book for both scholars and activists.' - Michael L. Ross, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Shapes the Development of Nations 'The complexity of contemporary resource wars is elegantly unpacked in this lucid investigation of geography and violence. It shows how resources are entangled in complicated geopolitical economies which require careful policy initiatives rather than simple moral certainties. This simply is the must read volume for anyone concerned to understand these issues in depth.' - Simon Dalby, Carleton University