Private Empire

ExxonMobil and American Power

By: Steve Coll

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins

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)

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.

loved it

a whole lot of information . But worth hanging on until the end. good read

how the world really works.

gives you a lot of insight on global oil. and a few of the geopolitical connections between the corporate world and the political world

Energy as seen by the corporate clones

Very good book for getting to know how our world is orchestrated by the global elite, if I may take the liberty of calling big oil by that acronym. Whats good for Exxon is good for the world,salute the company flag, not the US flag. Its a fair book as far as prejudices go, mostly from the side of Exxon. Global Warming is treated fairly, although as a scientist I dont believe in it, nor do many scientists, including Exxon scientists. But I'm a rocket scientist, not an oilman. The assasination and elimination of new overunity technologies is ignored and pretty much denied by this book, although Exxon I believe is quite involved in keeping new technologies off the market so oil can remain king. But what do you expect in a corporate book? Its a great look inside this modern Tyrannosaurus Rex. And yes, I have to put gas in my car too, until I can afford a Tesla at least. We are quite dependent on Exxon and they intend to keep it that way. $250 billion in quickly accessible reserves (to keep things that way) in 2009 the book says. Of course, the coproration says there are no accessible technologies on the horizon, but I know differently. It should say, Exxon is going to make sure they are not accessible. But thats just my opinion. I recommend this book for everyone, my only disappointment was Deepwater Horizons by BP. I think we the public deserve more of an explanation of what might have happened there. But maybe those are corporate secrets. And not a word about the "Corexit" dispersant, which so far as I know is still being sprayed in the Gulf due to leaks. it is a neurotoxin and will take out your brain. And not a word about the Queen of England just happening to visit here to cry about how she would have to hock her crown jewels if England had to pay for what BP did. Also, in Indonesia, I dont think he mentions once the rebels there are Moslem radicals, in a Moslem (90%) country. Well, the book remains politically correct, even though that part is important to the story as it is told so excellently. Overall, a really great book. The opinions are strictly mine.

Please no more accents!

Private Empire is an excellent investigation of Exxon's (and more recently Exxon-Mobil's) corporate conduct and policies over the last two decades or so. Coll begins with the Valdez spill and offers more of a series of case studies than any continuous history. At times a more detailed backstory of Exxon's pre-1989 development would help, but on the whole Coll's more journalistic approach is effective and interesting.

My only complaint here is the narration - and really it's the trend represented here more than the specific performance I object to. Malcolm Hillgartner's voice is fine, and he generally reads in a clear, expressive manner. But I appeal to him, and to all audiobook producers, to enact a moratorium on foreign accents, at least in nonfiction works. Unless done extremely well, the use of accents to distinguish quotes from speakers of different nationalities is totally distracting - at best comical, at worst borderline offensive. Listening to Vladimir Putin's words (which were spoken in Russian to begin with!) recited in a Bela Lugosi-like "Russian" accent in no way enhances my listening pleasure. Maybe this kind of dramatization is necessary or desirable in narrating works of fiction (though I'd prefer not), but when it's actual historical figures in a work of journalistic reporting, it's just ridiculous. (Ditto w/male narrator's reading women's words in a semi-falsetto. Yuck!)

Great book...but

If you could sum up Private Empire in three words, what would they be?

Comprehensive but biased

Any additional comments?

This comprehensive review of Exxon Mobil from the time of the Exxon Valdez spill to the present was an enjoyable listen to me as a professional in the oil and gas industry. While one can tell that the author attempted to present an unbiased review, his bias to the side of environmentalism is apparent at times.

Fascinating

Where does Private Empire rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top ten percent

What did you like best about this story?

The amount of research that the author must have done, and his ability to present it all in an interesting fashion.

Which character – as performed by Malcolm Hillgartner – was your favorite?

Lee Raymond

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

twenty odd hours - you must be joking

Any additional comments?

Excellent narrator. Struggled a little with some of African and UK accents but overall a sterling performance.

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

Not riveting, but intellectually interesting

Find out what Rex Tillerson's career was like before he was tapped to run the State Department. An interesting history of a major corporation and its influence on everything from climate science to human rights. Not exactly a page turner, but I came away feeling like I had learned quite a bit.

Informative and Concise

What made the experience of listening to Private Empire the most enjoyable?

My personal interest in the energy industry.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The creator of Exxon due to his eccentric behavior to conquer and control with his corporation at all costs.

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

No. Eat this elephant in small bites.

Any additional comments?

If you're already interested in how corporate america controls government policy and how such corporations are born, then this is the book for you. To the average citizen, this may put them to sleep because of the depth of detail it goes into regarding Exxon Mobil's vast history.

Personally, this filled in a lot of holes with respect to a lot of other historical nonfiction books I've read on similar subjects so it was definitely worth the listen.