Private Empire

Private Empire
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 654
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1101572140

“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 compelling and elucidatory work.” —Bloomberg From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, an extraordinary exposé of Big Oil. Includes a profile of current Secretary of State and former chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson In this, the first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil—the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States—Steve Coll reveals the true extent of its power. 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—featuring kidnapping cases, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin—and the narrative is driven by larger-than-life characters, including corporate legend Lee “Iron Ass” Raymond, ExxonMobil’s chief executive until 2005, and current chairman and chief executive Rex Tillerson, President-elect Donald Trump's nomination for Secretary of State. A penetrating, news-breaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy.

On the Grand Trunk Road

On the Grand Trunk Road
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2009-03-31
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1101029137

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, a trek across a socially and politically damaged South Asia Bestselling author Steve Coll is one of the preeminent journalists of the twenty-first century. His last two books, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars and New York Times bestseller The Bin Ladens, have been praised for their creative insight and complex yet compelling narratives-and have put him on par with journalists such as the legendary Bob Woodward. Now, for the first time ever, the paperback edition of On the Grand Trunk Road is finally available, revised and updated with new material. Focusing on Coll's journeys in conflict-ridden India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan as a bureau chief for The Washington Post, On the Grand Trunk Road reveals a little-seen area of the world where violence, corruption, and greed have had devastating effects on South Asians from all walks of life.

Kochland

Kochland
Author: Christopher Leonard
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 704
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476775397

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 * WINNER OF THE J ANTHONY LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD * FINANCIAL TIMES’ BEST BOOKS OF 2019 * NPR FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2019 * FINALIST FOR THE FINACIAL TIMES/MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF 2019 * KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOKS OF 2019 * SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOKS OF 2019 “Superb…Among the best books ever written about an American corporation.” —Bryan Burrough, The New York Times Book Review Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how one of the biggest private companies in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America. The annual revenue of Koch Industries is bigger than that of Goldman Sachs, Facebook, and US Steel combined. Koch is everywhere: from the fertilizers that make our food to the chemicals that make our pipes to the synthetics that make our carpets and diapers to the Wall Street trading in all these commodities. But few people know much about Koch Industries and that’s because the billionaire Koch brothers have wanted it that way. For five decades, CEO Charles Koch has kept Koch Industries quietly operating in deepest secrecy, with a view toward very, very long-term profits. He’s a genius businessman: patient with earnings, able to learn from his mistakes, determined that his employees develop a reverence for free-market ruthlessness, and a master disrupter. These strategies made him and his brother David together richer than Bill Gates. But there’s another side to this story. If you want to understand how we killed the unions in this country, how we widened the income divide, stalled progress on climate change, and how our corporations bought the influence industry, all you have to do is read this book. Seven years in the making, Kochland “is a dazzling feat of investigative reporting and epic narrative writing, a tour de force that takes the reader deep inside the rise of a vastly powerful family corporation that has come to influence American workers, markets, elections, and the very ideas debated in our public square. Leonard’s work is fair and meticulous, even as it reveals the Kochs as industrial Citizens Kane of our time” (Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Private Empire).

Ghost Wars

Ghost Wars
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 736
Release: 2005-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0141935790

The news-breaking book that has sent schockwaves through the White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeada's evolution. Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of bn Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.

National Insecurity

National Insecurity
Author: Melvin A. Goodman
Publisher: City Lights Books
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2013-02-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0872865959

"Mel Goodman has spent the last few decades telling us what's gone wrong with American intelligence and the American military, and now, in National Insecurity, he tells us what we must do to change the way the system works, and how to fix it. Goodman is not only telling us how to save wasted billions—he is also telling us how to save ourselves."—Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker Upon leaving the White House in 1961, President Eisenhower famously warned Americans about the dangers of a "military industrial complex," and was clearly worried about the destabilizing effects of a national economy based on outsized investments in military spending. As more and more Americans fall into poverty and the global economy spirals downward, the United States is spending more on the military than ever before. What are the consequences and what can be done? Melvin A. Goodman, a twenty-four-year veteran of the CIA, brings peerless authority to his argument that US military spending is indeed making Americans poorer and less secure while undermining our political standing in the world. Drawing from his firsthand experience with war planners and intelligence strategists, Goodman offers an insider's critique of the US military economy from President's Eisenhower's farewell warning to Barack Obama's expansion of the military's power. He outlines a much needed vision for how to alter our military policy, practices and spending in order to better position the United States globally and enhance prosperity and security at home. Melvin A. Goodman is the Director of the National Security Project at the Center for International Policy. A former professor of international security at the National War College and an intelligence adviser to strategic disarmament talks in the 1970s, he is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed The Failure of Intelligence.

SUMMARY - Private Empire: ExxonMobil And American Power By Steve Coll

SUMMARY - Private Empire: ExxonMobil And American Power By Steve Coll
Author: Shortcut Edition
Publisher: Shortcut Edition
Total Pages: 35
Release:
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

* Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. By reading this summary, you will learn about the recent history of ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company. You will also learn that : exxon and mobil merged in 1999; the geographic location of Exxon and Mobil's proven reserves were complementary; most of Exxon's executives came from the southern states; after its failed merger with Mobil, BP merged with Amoco; between 1999 and 2001, a wave of mergers transformed the face of the global oil industry; the ExxonMobil group is present in nearly 200 countries. From Abu Dhabi to Sumatra and from the North Sea to Alaska to Angola and Venezuela, ExxonMobil is present in every corner of the globe. ExxonMobil is active around the world, mining oil and natural gas and distributing it worldwide through its network of service stations. As the title of the book aptly reminds us, this sprawling company is a "private empire", a state within a state, whose policies do not always mesh well with those of the United States. Steve Coll explores every nook and cranny of this private empire and highlights the shadowy side, to the delight of the reader. *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!

Paris: A Love Story

Paris: A Love Story
Author: Kati Marton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2013-03-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451691556

Marton first spent time in Paris during college in 1968, when France was in revolt; as a young student she was inspired by researching the history of her survivalist family who had escaped from communist Hungary to France. Ten years later, Paris was the setting for her big career break as ABC bureau chief, as well as where she found passionate love with Peter Jennings, the man to whom she was married for 15 years and had two children. It was again in Paris, years later, where she found enduring love with her husband, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. And it was to Paris where Kati returned in order to rebuild her spirit in the wake of Richard's death. Kati Marton's newest memoir is a candid exploration of many kinds of love, as well as a love letter to the city of Paris itself.

Inside Apple

Inside Apple
Author: Adam Lashinsky
Publisher: Business Plus
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2012-01-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1455512176

Inside Apple reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products. If Apple is Silicon Valley's answer to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the "DRI" (Apple's practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs). Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run The Company Someday he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO. While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.

The Bin Ladens

The Bin Ladens
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 700
Release: 2008-04-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101202726

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap "Riveting . . . The most psychologically detailed portrait of the brutal 9/11 mastermind yet." - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times In The Bin Ladens, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Coll continues where Ghost Wars left off, shedding new light on one of the most elusive families of the twenty-first century. Rising from a famine-stricken desert into luxury, private compounds, and even business deals with Hollywood celebrities, the Bin Ladens have benefited from the tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, suddenly thrust into a world awash in oil, money, and the temptations of the West. But what do these incongruities mean for globalization, the War on Terror, and America's place in the Middle East? Meticulously researched, The Bin Ladens is the story of a remarkably varied and often dangerous family that has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically different ends.

The TAKING OF GETTY OIL

The TAKING OF GETTY OIL
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Total Pages: 552
Release: 1987-08-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

A true story of family, ambition, and greed in the most bitter and controversial takeover struggle in business history.