Overview

Steve Coll's Private Empire is winner of the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012. In this prize-winning book, the author of Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens investigates the notoriously mysterious ExxonMobil Corporation and the secrets of the oil industry. In many of the nations where it operates, ExxonMobil has a greater sway than that of the US embassy, its annual revenues are larger than the total economic activity in most countries and in Washington it spends more on lobbying than any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is to outsiders a black box. Private Empire begins with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and closes with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Steve Coll's narrative spans the globe, taking readers to Moscow, impoverished African capitals, Indonesia and elsewhere as ExxonMobil carries out its activities against a backdrop of blackmail threats, kidnapping, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin. In the US, Coll goes inside ExxonMobil's ruthless Washington lobbying offices and its corporate headquarters in Irving, Texas, where top executives oversee a bizarre corporate culture of discipline and secrecy. Private Empire is the masterful result of Steve Coll's indefatigable reporting, from the halls of Congress to the oil-laden swamps of the Niger Delta; previously classified U.S. documents; heretofore unexamined court records; and many other sources.

Full Product Details

Author:   Steve Coll
Publisher:   Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint:   Allen Lane
Dimensions:   Width: 16.20cm , Height: 4.50cm , Length: 24.00cm
Weight:   1.173kg
ISBN:  

9781846146596

ISBN 10:   1846146593
Pages:   704
Publication Date:   05 July 2012
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Reviews

Riveting ... the finest historical narrative so far on the origins of al-Qaeda -- [praise For Ghost Wars] New York Times Book Review A remarkable book ... the CIA itself would be hard put to beat his grasp of global events -- [praise For Ghost Wars] New York Review of Books Stunningly researched and grippingly told ... [this] ought to be read by anyone who really wants to understand the origins of the current crisis -- [praise For The Bin Ladens] Los Angeles Times

Magisterial ... a revealing history of our time, a chronicle of the intersection between energy and politics -- Bill McKibben New York Review of Books Meticulously researched and elegantly written, it is likely to be the definitive work on its subject for many years to come. Steve Coll ... is honest about Exxon's strengths as well as its flaws, and presents both sides of the arguments with scrupulous even-handedness ... At every stop there are vivid anecdotes, sharp insights and telling details -- Ed Crooks Financial Times Masterful ... Coll's in-depth reporting, buttressed by his anecdotal prose, make Private Empire a must-read ... [His] portrait of ExxonMobil is both riveting and appalling... Yet Private Empire is not so much an indictment as a fascinating look into American business and politics San Francisco Chronicle Meticulous, multi-angled and valuable ... Coll's prose sweeps the earth like an Imax camera -- Dwight Garner New York Times A thorough, sobering study of the pernicious consolidation of Big Oil ... jaw-dropping reading Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Steve Coll is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Bin Ladens. He is president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute headquartered in Washington, D.C., and a staff writer for The New Yorker. He won a Pulitzer prize for explanatory journalism while working at the Washingon Post. He is the author of six other books, including the bestseller Ghost Wars, which won him a second Pulitzer prize. He lives in Washington and New York.

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