‘Private Empire’: A Look Inside ExxonMobil
"Private Empire" was a project four years in the making. Image courtesy Penguin.comAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Steve Coll has traveled the world reporting on nuclear weapons, the CIA, and terrorists in the Middle East. But the New Yorker reporter may have found his biggest reporting challenge yet right here in Texas.
In his new book, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, Coll takes a close look at how the oil giant has become one of the most powerful organizations in the world. KUT’s Terrence Henry spoke to Coll for StateImpact Texas about the secretive company and what drew it to move to Texas.
It really reinforced their don’t-mess-with-us kind of attitude. They were, in the post-Cold War world, more and more identifying with suspicion of government that was rising in the United States. Their executives were almost uniformly from a very strong free-market, anti-government perspective.
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