Global Blueprint: Extraction Goes Global
The extraction models perfected in Latin America — the enclave economy, corporate-state collusion, infrastructure monopolies, and violent labor suppression — became the worldwide blueprint. The global sibling to Backyard Empire: deeply researched deep-dives into Shell in the Niger Delta, the pipelines of Myanmar, King Leopold's Congo, Firestone in Liberia, the cobalt of the Congo, and more — each tied back to its Latin American predecessor. We work from primary documents and peer-reviewed scholarship and keep contested history contested. Narrated by AI voices from sourced, human-reviewed research. © 2026 Selway Solutions LLC · <a href="https://history.selwaysolutions.io/index.html#license">Educational & Institutional Use License</a> · <a href="mailto:nick@selwaysolutions.io">Contact</a>
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Episodes
Shell's Toxic Legacy in the Niger Delta
Nigeria sits on some of the richest oil in Africa, and for most of the petroleum age a single Anglo-Dutch company pumped the largest share of it.
A Pipeline Built on Forced Labor: How Villagers Sued an Oil Company
Off Myanmar's coast lies a field of natural gas, and to bring it ashore in the 1990s a French oil giant and an American one went into business with one of the world's most repressive militaries.
How King Leopold Privately Owned the Congo: The Rubber Terror
For twenty-three years, one man owned a country.
From Severed Hands to Firestone: The Tire Company That Funded a Warlord
In 1926 an American tire company rented a tenth of a country.
A Child's Hand in a Clean Battery: The Human Cost of Congo's Cobalt
The Congo has, for more than a century, been the place the world goes to dig up what it needs next — copper, uranium, and diamonds under Belgian rule; today cobalt and coltan, the metals in every smartphone battery and electric car.