'When you've got one resource that's pulling in such a big revenue stream, you tend to end up with very rich elites who will do anything to hold onto power who stopped doing the other things that governments should otherwise be doing to serve the needs of the people,' she said in an interview with All Things Considered.

She says Vladimir Putin exploited Russia's lucrative oil industry to support his vision of making Russia a superpower again. Russia's shaky economy, hampered by a reliance on oil and gas, helps explain the country's weakness, and 'some of Russia's weakness explains why they attacked us in the way they did,' Maddow argues. In her new book, Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, Maddow concludes that Russia is a victim of a 'resource curse' - a paradox that resource-rich countries tend to be poorer, less democratic and more corrupt. But a nagging question led her there: Why did Russia interfere in America's 2016 presidential election, and why attack the United States in such a cunning way?Īlthough the MSNBC host regularly devotes ample airtime to the topic of Russia on The Rachel Maddow Show, her digging led her to a thesis she thought was too long for TV. Rachel Maddow didn't set out to write a book.

Rachel Maddow's new book, Blowout, examines how the Russian economy's reliance on oil and natural gas contributed to Vladimir Putin's decision to interfere in the 2016 U.S.

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