ExxonMobil is so rich it can outspend the US government and has a better credit rating than the US treasury. It is truly an empire, "a corporate state within the American state". A huge lobbying operation in Washington helps it influence foreign policy and win contracts abroad, and it has few qualms about dealing with dictators in oil-rich nations. The key figure in the book is Lee "Iron Ass" Raymond, chief executive until 2005. A friend of Dick Cheney, Raymond is also a fierce climate-change sceptic, and the oil giant funded anti-climate change research. "We don't run this company on emotions," Raymond once declared; all that mattered was "the relentless pursuit of efficiency". There's no doubting ExxonMobil's operational expertise, and Steve Coll, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, shows how changes in the world oil industry since the 1950s meant the company had to adapt to survive. But its power remains unchecked, making this thorough and accessible portrait of the secretive corporation fascinating and deeply disturbing.