Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

Author(s): Steve Coll

Politics

In "Private Empire", Steve Coll, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and 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.


Product Information

A thorough, sobering study of the pernicious consolidation of Big Oil ... jaw-dropping reading Kirkus Reviews 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

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.

General Fields

  • : 9781846146596
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : Allen Lane
  • : 1.173
  • : May 2012
  • : 240mm X 162mm X 45mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : August 2012
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Steve Coll
  • : Hardback
  • : 9-Dec
  • : 338.76223380973
  • : 704