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tl;dr Review:
A timely reminder that no matter how dismal the odds may seem or how much the deck is stacked against you, goodness can prevail and small groups can do big things.
Full Review:
The publisher describes the book’s subject as follows:
Never underestimate the underdog.
In the fall of 1973, the Greek oil shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, husband of President John F. Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and arguably the richest man in the world, proposed to build an oil refinery on the narrow New Hampshire coast, in the town of Durham. At the time, it would have cost $600 million to build and was expected to generate 400,000 barrels of oil per day, making it the largest oil refinery in the world. The project was vigorously supported by the governor, Meldrim Thomson, and by William Loeb, the notorious publisher of the only statewide newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader.
But three women vehemently opposed the project—Nancy Sandberg, the town leader who founded and headed Save Our Shores; Dudley Dudley, the freshman state rep who took the fight to the state legislature; and Phyllis Bennett, the publisher of the local newspaper that alerted the public to Onassis’ secret acquisition of the land. Small Town, Big Oil is the story of how the residents of Durham, led by these three women, out-organized, out-witted, and out-maneuvered the governor, the media, and the Onassis cartel to hand the powerful Greek billionaire the most humiliating defeat of his business career, and spare the New Hampshire seacoast from becoming an industrial wasteland.
Not only does this book highlight the intersecting stories of the three women that saved this town, but it also showcases how women are usually the ones to get shit done when it comes to political change.
This book had a little bit of everything:
- The compellingness of an unbelievable true story.
- A ruthless villain.
- Three scrappy, hardworking women who team up despite the odds against them.
- Tons of history for the history nerds among us.
- The battle between progress and society.
- How little changes can impact everything.
- People stepping up because they believe in something, despite zero experience.
Even though the outcome of the story is in the book’s title, I still had a hard time putting it down to go to sleep because I wanted to know exactly how they did it. Sometimes a non-fiction book can read a bit too much like a textbook (a.k.a. boring AF and just the bare facts). Yet, author David Moore did a great job of weaving these three women’s stories and including quotes where possible so that this non-fiction tale reads like a fiction book.
If you’re looking for a great read that leaves you feeling inspired and with the belief that you can have an impact on your world, then this is the book for you.
I give it 5 out of 5 thumbs up.
