• Private Empire

  • ExxonMobil and American Power
  • By: Steve Coll
  • Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
  • Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (750 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Private Empire  By  cover art

Private Empire

By: Steve Coll
Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $29.25

Buy for $29.25

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.

Private Empire pulls back the curtain, tracking the corporation’s recent history and its central role on the world stage, beginning with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and leading to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The action spans the globe, moving from Moscow, to impoverished African capitals, Indonesia, and elsewhere in heart-stopping scenes that feature kidnapping cases, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin.

At home, Coll goes inside ExxonMobil’s K Street office and corporation headquarters in Irving, Texas, where top executives in the “God Pod” (as employees call it) oversee an extraordinary corporate culture of discipline and secrecy.

The narrative is driven by larger-than-life characters, including corporate legend Lee “Iron Ass” Raymond, ExxonMobil’s chief executive until 2005. A close friend of Dick Cheney’s, Raymond was both the most successful and effective oil executive of his era and an unabashed skeptic about climate change and government regulation. This position proved difficult to maintain in the face of new science and political change, and Raymond’s successor, current ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, broke with Raymond’s programs in an effort to reset ExxonMobil’s public image. The larger cast includes countless world leaders, plutocrats, dictators, guerrillas, and corporate scientists who are part of ExxonMobil’s colossal story.

The first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil, Private Empire is the masterful result of Coll’s indefatigable reporting. He draws here on more than 400 interviews, field reporting from the halls of Congress to the oil-laden swamps of the Niger Delta, more than 1,000 pages of previously classified U.S. documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, heretofore unexamined court records, and many other sources. A penetrating, newsbreaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of ExxonMobil and the place of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy.

©2012 Steve Coll (P)2012 Penguin

Critic reviews

"ExxonMobil has met its match in Coll, an elegant writer and dogged reporter… extraordinary...monumental." (The Washington Post)

"Fascinating.... Private Empire is a book meticulously prepared as if for trial, a lawyerly accumulation of information that lets the facts speak for themselves...a compelling and elucidatory work." (BLOOMBERG)

"Private Empire is meticulous, multi-angled and valuable.... Mr. Coll’s prose sweeps the earth like an Imax camera." (Dwight Garner, The New York Times)

What listeners say about Private Empire

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    402
  • 4 Stars
    229
  • 3 Stars
    94
  • 2 Stars
    19
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    371
  • 4 Stars
    173
  • 3 Stars
    69
  • 2 Stars
    10
  • 1 Stars
    4
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    322
  • 4 Stars
    189
  • 3 Stars
    86
  • 2 Stars
    16
  • 1 Stars
    9

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting history

May have liked a bit more of the whole intrigue thing, but maybe it just is what it is! Overall a good read and would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about the oil industry players.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

glad this got published

Well i wouldn't be if i was driving a 79 white Cadillac Eldorado convertible with cowhide seats and horns on the hood with trunk full of cash!

These dirty pigs had it coming. not that they still don't own our government; but at least we know the details.

Good job steve, wherever your hiding.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Four Stars, amidst allegations of fraud.all

Well OK the allegations of fraudulent writing are my allegations -but even so my title is literally true. Let me explain. Steve Coll tells us that Hugo Chavez won a referendum "amidst allegations of fraud". Literally true - there were allegations of fraud from his opponents. But would it not have been more truthful to include the fact that the Carter Centre found that the oppositions' allegations were baseless - or to mention that the Carter Center has found Venezuelan elections to be among the most free and accurate they have monitored? Hmmm - you judge my allegations.

Also interesting is that the theme of considerable chapters deals with the dictators of Chad and Equatorial Guinea - the authors perspective seems to be that it is really wrong for them to promise to use oil royalties to help their poor but do not do so. Yet when Hugo Chavez promises to and then actually does just that - he is criticized. The author discusses the pitiful Human Development index for Chad, but, Hmmm, no mention that Chavez's HDI has one of the largest increases in the World and - that under Chavez, poverty has decreased 50% and extreme poverty 67% - with free health care and education. Hmmm perhaps the author doesn't want us to get any ideas... you judge.

But hey - I highly recommend this book - there are many interesting events with interesting details told well - it is a great work of journalism - but keep in mind though that it would seem that Mr Coll, like all western governments and corporations would not really like to eradicate the "resource curse" from the south and that like all history "Private Empire" should be read as a fallible narrative.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Oil is here to stay - learn about it

Oil is a very dirty business. The stuff is dirty when it comes out of the ground. Exxon's business locations are dirty and out of the way. Sure, every business has its dirty little secrets, but the oil industry affects all of us. A rather long book does not seem so long because the industry is very complicated. Two-sided arguments throughout show that morality can trump business and sometimes business trumps morality.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Content but Subpar Narration

Would you listen to Private Empire again? Why?

Yes, because it provides excellent insight into the complexities of running a major energy company in the 21st Century.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Exxon-Mobil because although it is portrayed as a villian throughout the book, it prevailed in the end!

What three words best describe Malcolm Hillgartner’s voice?

Mispronounced "Schlumberger" and "Total"

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, it is far too long and too deep

Any additional comments?

The narrator showed his unfamiliarity with major foreign oil and oil services companies by mispronouncing "Total" as though it were the cereal Total, and misprouncing the last two syllables in "Schlumberger" like those in hamburger.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Exxon is probably the best oil co, but faces massive existential risks due to its business

Exxon the best oil company but it is riddled by the massive risks it must enter in the countries it operates in. Even if it wasn’t oil, operating in fragile countries means everyone is fighting over a pile of money from the resource extraction.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Why is it an empire? What's private about it?

I liked it, but now I don't understand how it's relevant. I listened to this during Covid. Since then, I've looked deeper into the histories around the Mediterranean basin. Those city-states were commercial. The "kings" were their CEOs. They were masters of supply chain, and evidently used tools like warfare to settle management disputes. But I don't see how these anecdotes about Exxon are informative about how the Ukraine war (or Gazprom?) might affect the rest of the world.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The History of Oil

There are many supporting actors throughout disparate countries during different decades that unless you listen carefully during the early chapters it may become confusing as the story evolves. Overall well presented by both author and narrator although I felt the ending was weak as I was expecting a strong close given the build up as the story reached its conclusion. But then at 24 hours this was a long listen but enlightening if not extremely familiar with ExxonMobil history.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting but glad it's over

Interesting book. Now I see ExxonMobil as much more of a mundane company than some nefarious international company.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

interesting

I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was better versed in world politics but I learned some new things and overall it was an interesting read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!