Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power [Hardcover]

If you knew nothing about the oil business and international politics - then this might be a starter book for you. Otherwise, forget it. This is a sub-Vanity Fair stylistic compilation of themeless unconnected selected tales and vignettes involving Exxon Mobil and more specifically, chosen handfuls of its personnel. There is, barring passing comment, no serious or lengthy, or most importantly, integrated, analysis of Exxon and what it is about and how it may or may not be shaping global oil.

I say "Vanity Fair", as it is written, as sadly increasingly most such books are these days, in the journo-creates-atmosphere style by conveying "place" and "character" while pretending that the writer was there.

If text such as "It was a grey rainy November day when Jim "the shark" Macaulay got into his regulation Exxon hire car to drive...He was a long term Exxon employee widely held in high regard for his skills at..." appeals to you, then this book is for you. Otherwise - dreadful.

Have you ever noticed how in all these sorts of books ALL the staff introduced are always really really experienced, bright, perceptive, hard working, seem to have extraordinary skills that somehow no-one else has. NOBODY at management level is ever out of their depth, dumb, deceitful, slow, not very capable or bright, unwilling to take responsibility or make a decision, over-promoted, sycophantic or just "average"...

For sure given his reputation the author can get access to the organisation first hand and to senior management; he has conducted various interviews. His funding has allowed him to interview people in different countries. But all that has then happened is that these interviews have been dressed up and strung together. There is little-no serious core to this book nor coherence. Entities such as Exxon are huge multi-dimensional concerns; any attempt to come to terms with them thus requires knowledge and input on multi-dimensional topics and levels. That also takes anyone a long time to do; it is a sustained undertaking. It is a complicated endeavor. If that is not being done - by someone with the qualifiications to do it - what you get, at very best, is the blind man and the elephant parable.

What has been presented here is a quickie knock off book. The "obvious" and old worn out topics - where thus material is easily accessible and already known - Exxon Valdez, peak oil arguments, oil and environment and NGO conflicts, oil and corruption in the 3rd World, are all trotted out. And if that was not bad enough are mostly all then given the fairly superficial treatment.

What of course - and it is deliberate technique - this style of sourcing information through interview projects to the reader, is that somehow the veil is being lifted and you are getting the "insider gen"; the stuff that has never been revealed before and so forth. The ultimate insider track view on some topic or other. Of course none of that is true, per se. Nor invariably in practice. What invariably you get are blandness, inanities and summations of the already known and deducible (even if no Exxon official has ever commented on X or Y before, we can make intelligent guesses as to what their view will be, we don't need implied "expose" face to face talks for that).

Coll's main first book, "Taking Getty Oil", was significantly better than this.

Sadly one can only suspect that what is going on here is that Coll is on autopilot now, living off, and dining out, on the perceived success of "Ghost Wars" and "The Bin Ladens" and has slipped into journo mode where he now writes superficial dross that is underpinned by little serious thought (or objective) and no coherent research.

Balanced books about the oil industry are hard to find. We all know what oil companies are like. They are run by devils with horns who eat children for breakfast. Or maybe not. Maybe they are ordinary guys like you and me just trying to do a tough job in a challenging world. After all, that oil doesn't get into the pump by itself.

When I was a kid we were taught that all the oil was going to run out. We only had 20 years or so of the stuff left, and always did. In 1970 they taught us it would run out in 1990, in 1980 it was 2000, and so on. It's still here, and it seems it will be for many decades to come. Why is that? Well it seems the guys with horns keep discovering new oilfields, and keep developing better technology to extract the stuff that was previously thought unextractable.

We were also taught that the arabs were going to take over the world because they had all the oil. But where does the US import most of its oil from? Canada.

This book is full of fascinating nuggets like these. It makes a pleasant change to read the other side of the story for a change, especially when presented so impartially.

The scope of Steve Coll's investigations and the knowledge that went into the making of this book makes it informative as well as enjoyable.