In this book, the author 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 U.S. embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized global influence, the true nature of the company is not widely known by the general public. This book 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, the author 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 scientific and political change and Raymond's successor, 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. -- from Book Jacket.
The first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil, this book is the masterful result of Coll's indefatigable reporting. He draws here on more than four hundred interviews, field reporting from the halls of Congress to the oil-laden swamps of the Niger Delta, more than one thousand 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, this book is a defining portrait of ExxonMobil and the place of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy. -- From Book Jacket.