“Fossil capitalism, and the calamitous consequences of our dependence on coal and petroleum, is central to any understanding of life in the Anthropocene. Bret Gustafson offers up an original and compelling take on the oft-told tale of oil wealth, petroviolence, and the so-called curse of oil dependency by reinterpreting the colonial and postcolonial history of Bolivia through the country's relation to natural gas, what he calls the gaseous state. Gustafson draws together the temporalities, spaces, and excesses of a world built through the exploitation of gas and in so doing takes the reader on an exhilarating ride through US imperialism, the Bolivian state, Indigenous territoriality, the hard-edged world of pipelines, wellheads, violent corporate capital, and of course the rise and fall of Evo Morales. A book for our time.” — Michael Watts, Class of 63 Professor, University of California, Berkeley
“Bolivia in the Age of Gas is without a doubt the definitive account of the Bolivian petrostate and its subjects. It makes important contributions to anthropology, to Latin American studies, and to the emergent interdisciplinary literature in energy humanities. It is also a true pleasure to read, the rare scholarly page-turner that conveys critical analytical insights in terms and ethnographic moments that will captivate readers of all backgrounds.” — Dominic Boyer, author of Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene
“Bret Gustafson’s Bolivia in the Age of Gas is an ambitious and exquisitely detailed historical ethnography of Bolivia and its complicated relation with gas (and oil).... Gustafson exudes an enviable clarity even as he insists on nuance, complexity and contradiction.” — Maria Elena Garcia, ReVista