Raymond Learsy is the author of the updated version of Over a Barrel: Breaking Oil's Grip on Our Future (Encounter Books, 2005). After graduating from the Wharton School, he made his living in commodities trading. In the 1980s, he became a private investor, and from 1982 to 1988, served as a Reagan appointee to the National Endowment for the Arts. He belongs to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Learsy's analysis of the international oil trade and OPEC and its impact on the U.S. and world economy has appeared in the National Review Online, the New York Times, Pipeline and Gas Journal, the Huffington Post and on CNBC. He resides in Connecticut.