Private empire (Penguin Books)

From twice-Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Steve Coll comes "Private Empire", winner of the Ft/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award 2012. The oil giant ExxonMobil makes more money annually than the GDP of most countries; has greater sway than US embassies abroad; and spends more on lobbying than any other corporation.

Yet to outsiders it is a mystery. In "Private Empire", award-winning reporter Steve Coll tells the truth about the world's most powerful and shadowy company. From the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, via Moscow, the swamps of the Niger Delta and the halls of Congress, he reveals a story of dictators, oligarchs, civil war, blackmail, secrecy and ruthlessness.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and newly declassified documents, this is a chilling portrait of unchecked power. Reviews: "Magisterial...a revealing history of our time". ("New York Review of Books").

"Meticulous, multi-angled and valuable...Coll's prose sweeps the earth like an Imax camera". (Dwight Garner, "The New York Times"). "Jaw-dropping reading". ("Kirkus Reviews").

"The definitive work on its subject...at every stop there are vivid anecdotes, sharp insights and telling details".(Ed Crooks, "Financial Times"). About the author: Steve Coll is the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Bin Ladens".

He is president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute headquartered in Washington, D.C., and a staff writer for "The New Yorker". He won a Pulitzer prize for explanatory journalism while working at the "Washingon Post".

He is the author of six other books, including the bestseller "Ghost Wars", which won him a second Pulitzer prize. He lives in Washington and New York.