F William Engdahl

Early life and education

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, Engdahl is the son of F. William Engdahl, Sr., and Ruth Aalund (b. Rishoff). Engdahl grew up in Texas and after earning a degree in engineering and jurisprudence from Princeton University in 1966 (BA) and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm from 1969 to 1970, he worked as an economist and freelance journalist in New York and in Europe.

Career

Engdahl began writing about oil politics with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. He has also been a long-time associate of the LaRouche movement and has written many articles for their publications.

His first book was called A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order and discusses the alleged roles of Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Ball and of the USA in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran, which was meant to manipulate oil prices and to stop Soviet expansion. Engdahl claims that Brzezinski and Ball used the Islamic Balkanization model proposed by Bernard Lewis. In 2007, he completed Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation.

Engdahl is also a contributor to the website of the anti-globalization Centre for Research on Globalization, the Russian website New Eastern Outlook, and the Voltaire Network, and a freelancer for varied newsmagazines such as the Asia Times.

William Engdahl has been married since 1987 and has been living for more than two decades near Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Confessions of an 'ex' peak oil believer

Engdahl stated in 2007 that he had come to believe that petroleum is not biological in origin, which is the theory supported by the majority of petroleum geologists and engineers. Instead he now believes the hypothesis that petroleum is geological in origin, produced from carbon, by forces of heat and pressure deep underground. Engdahl calls himself an "ex peak oil believer", stating that peak oil is actually a political phenomenon.

Global warming criticism

Engdahl argued that the problem with global warming is much exaggerated. He claims that global warming is merely a "scare" and a "thinly veiled attempt to misuse climate to argue for a new Malthusian reduction of living standards for the majority of the world while a tiny elite gains more power.".

Arab Spring and US "Greater Middle East Project"

On Russia Today, Engdahl stated in an interview that the 2011 Egyptian Revolution was orchestrated by the Pentagon to facilitate Barack Obama's Middle East foreign policy and that Egypt had turned to a worse situation since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. According to him, "The ultimate goal of the US is to take the resources of Africa and Middle East under military control to block economic growth in China and Russia, thus taking the whole of Eurasia under control." He believes that the Arab Spring was a plan "first announced by George W. Bush at a G8 meeting in 2003 and it was called 'The Greater Middle East Project.'"