Bob Reiss talks about Shell oil’s plans to sink exploratory wells in the waters off the North Slope of Alaska—a site that the company believes contains three times as much oil as the Gulf of Mexico. To write The Eskimo and the Oil Man: The Battle at the Top of the World for America's Future he traveled in America's High North over three years and spent time with scientists, diplomats, military planners, Eskimo whale hunters, and officials at the highest levels of the government to explore the issues dividing every American community wrestling with the balance between energy use and environmental protection, our love of cheap gas and the romance of pristine wilderness.