Private empire
by Steve Coll · first published 2012
9mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2014–2024first – last mentioned
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Follow that up with Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll and you've got a fascinating and compelling look at the last ~120 years of oil and American history.
on “The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller” ↗The book "Private Empire" by Steve Coll is excellent on this. Unbearably frustrating at points, because it seems that Exxon were well aware of the issue and there were some suggestions rolling around that would have made them…
on “CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415ppm for the first time in human history” ↗…required to export gas. (OT: if anyone in Silicon Valley thinks theirs is the only industry ripe with crazy schemes, insane pivots and huge disruptions, read up on energy. The Prize by Daniel Yergin, Private Empire by Steve Coll and The Frackers by Gregory Zuckerman are the places to start)
on “Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity” ↗…fossil fuel czar, Igor Sechin, Exxon's role in building the technologically advanced Sakhalin natural gas project and its LNG export system, etc. For anyone interested in that history, Steve Coll's "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power" has a whole chapter on it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13372977-private-empire See also stories like this (2011) > "Where BP had planned to swap stock, Exxon,…
on “Exxon’s Exodus” ↗…happened. This Ukraine war is just more of the same (plus, a new Cold War is good for military procurement budgets). Of course, energy geopolitics isn't the only issue, but anyone who has read Steve Coll's "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power", or Daniel Yergin's "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power" will recognize it's often the central reason for international conflicts. As far as the clearly…
on “Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting” ↗…atrocious 'Western values' records but which are compliant with US corporate interests. Equatorial Guinea was one such example, with dictator Obiang and his ExxonMobil contract. Steve Coll mentions this in "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power" (2012): > "Fortunately for Obiang, coup-prone African governments rolling in oil but lacking in arms and intelligence to defend their bounty had a discrete alternative…
on “WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code” ↗…relationship between business and government in the context of international relations more broadly, see William Manchester's "Arms of Krupp" (1968), Daniel Yergin's "The Prize" (1990) and Steve Coll's "Private Empire" (2012)). This economic-centric timeline looks a lot different from that in the article: 2003 Putin rejects the ExxonMobil bid for >50% ownership take in Yukos, and imprisons the Russian oligarch Khodorkovsky…
on “Why Are We in Ukraine?” ↗Big Oil has done this in the past too. I remember reading 'Private Empire' about ExxonMobil and the previous CEO was funding all of these PHD researchers to challenge climate science research in the early 2000s. They were quite successful at it too. Fortunately when Rex Tillerson…
on “Government-grade spyware hits Mexican advocates of soda tax” ↗Reminds me of the book "private empire" about ExxonMobil. "Private Empire pulls back the curtain, tracking the corporation’s recent history and its central role on the world stage. The action spans the globe, moving from Moscow, to impoverished…
on “Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements” ↗