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)

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 Fly on the Wall Perspective of ExxonMobil

If you like to feel like an insider, then this book is for you! I really like Steven Coll's pacing, as he was able to get my attention immediately as he starts with the tragedy surrounding the Exxon Valdez and all the characters involved in this historical event. From there he takes you through the ups and downs of this enormous private enterprise, which I found very insightful.

The key to the success of this book is the neutral perspective assumed by Coll, as I hate books that try to portray something that is simply big as also automatically bad. I am a businessman, and this book allowed me some keen insights into the thinking and doings of a major employer, energy producer, and endless source of speculation and controversy.

This book is not going to change your life by any means, but it is a great impartial look behind the curtain of a major global player.

I would highly recommend this book to any students of business or generally to anyone who likes to glimpse the inside.

Not Coll's Best

What did you like best about Private Empire? What did you like least?

Steve Coll is a fantastic writer and clearly takes no shortcuts in his research. I've read all his previous works (multiple times, actually) and each truly fascinating, memorable, and a pleasure to dive into. Not so much the case with Private Empire, however, as there is simply no "there, there." I have to assume that Coll formulated his theory about Exxon being this big bad corporate entity, started writing, and got too far along before realizing there wasn't really anything scandalous to be said. Anecdotes about Exxon's "obsession with safety" and commissioning of academic studies favorable to their business (a practice used by pretty much every company out there which has the money to do so) are treated as "revelations," made to seem more scandalous than they are. I suppose if you were to read/listen to this book in a judgmental tone it would have a greater impact, but otherwise don't expect more than a couple hundred pages of fluff and filler.

Would you ever listen to anything by Steve Coll again?

Yes, this is his one book that hasn't been truly excellent so I think he deserves another shot. I'm sure whatever he writes next will be great.

Which scene was your favorite?

The conservative culture, engendered by a top-down managerial approach, was interesting to learn about. The relationship between Lee Raymond and Dick Cheney is also fascinating.

What did you take away from Private Empire that you can apply to your work?

Some people view certain practices considered standard at companies as "evil," so be careful.

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.

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.

Interesting, but focuses too much on the oil spill

Very interesting topic. Unfortunately, for my interests, there are too many pages spent on details of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and not enough on Exxon Mobiles Washington efforts, Middle East efforts and interesting early history since Rockefeller.

Learn how to pronounce oil industry terms

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The narrator should have spent some time looking up how to pronounce some of the frequently used oil industry terms/company names.

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.

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.

Disappointing work from Coll

After reading Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, I was anxious to listen to Private Empire. What a total disappointment. His objectivity in the former work was completely absent from Empire. The best description I can provide is "Hatchet Job." According to this work, oil companies, and Exxon in particular, are responsible for all the world's economic and social ills. Part of this impression stems from the performance of the reader. The sarcasm was pervasive. Where possible, Coll also tried to smear government involvement in the oil business, especially where Republican administrations were in play. I would recommend this for fans of Michael Moore. I got the impression Coll was trying to emulate Moore with this book.

Dense. But enjoyable

This is a really good book but incredibly long and at times the detail get in the way of the narrative. I also find the chronology skips about as different issues and projects are discussed which can be confusing.



That said, the story is engaging and well read. I didn't know much about the oil industry and this was an eye opening account of the power players. At its best this is riveting stuff.

Great book, butttt

This is a great book. More like a thriller than a work of non-fiction. That said I would recommend to Audible that they don't use character voices for this type of book. It is distracting and takes from the story.

Also the version I have has regular skipping noises in it. Not clear what the cause is. I reinstalled the app and redownloaded the book, but this did not improve it.