Exxon book named biz book of the year

Steve Coll won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012 for “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” published by The Penguin Press and Allen Lane.

The book is a hard-hitting investigation of the notoriously secretive ExxonMobil Corp., beginning with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and closing with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The award, which recognizes the book that provides “the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues,” was presented Thursday evening to Steve Coll in New York by Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times and chair of the panel of judges, and Lloyd C. Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“Private Empire is forensic, nuanced and extremely well written,” said Barber in a statement. “It is the story of ExxonMobil, one of the world’s most powerful companies. Through a series of compelling narratives, it covers Exxon’s huge geopolitical footprint and its influence. No other book on this year’s shortlist exposes so much information that we did not know.”

Coll is a writer for The New Yorker and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.” He is president of the New America Foundation, a public policy institute in Washington, D.C. Previously he served, for more than 20 years, as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and ultimately as managing editor of The Washington Post

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