Books like Private Empire — picked by fans

Translated into English by Peter Theroux, this gorgeously written and emotionally stunning novel is told from the perspective of the Bedouin inhabitants during a time when Americans were arriving by the shipload to develop the oilfields they had discovered. The story is both epic and intimate (and, at points, wittily ironic) and opened my eyes to the vast destruction not only of the land and its people but the very core of their culture. Banned in several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, this is the first volume of a trilogy (and I recommend them all). 

In 2003 I went to Nigeria to write a report on oil companies’ “corporate social responsibility” in the Niger Delta. There was, and is, no such responsibility. The companies finance corrupt officials, wreck communities, and allow oil spills to poison millions of people’s drinking water. Under the Abacha dictatorship in the 1990s, they colluded with violent suppression of protest against their activities, culminating in the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the “Ogoni Nine”. This book showed me how Shell’s naked exploitation of people and their land worked, the systems of power that supported it, and how these evolved over time. One of the authors, Oronto Douglas, has passed away, but both participated in communities’ self-defence in the face of these systems. Their book is passionate, engaged, and razor-sharp analytically.

The frightful violence of the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003 was followed by a long, complicated war of stealth by the international oil companies. They sought access to Iraq’s oil reserves, the world’s third-largest, from which they had been ousted by nationalisation in the 1970s. Most western journalists simply could not be bothered to follow the complex interactions between the companies, the oil ministry, and civil society. That made reading this forensic investigation by Greg Muttitt, a committed campaigner for oil industry transparency, all the more satisfying.  

As a non-scientist, I love reading books written by scientists in language that the rest of us can understand. This is one of the best – and it addresses many of the most urgent questions scientists will keep worrying about through the 21st century, about the interaction between oil production and use, the atmosphere, the oceans, and freshwater systems. Catherine Gautier writes in a clear, accessible style. She is well aware that we can not fence off the study of physical phenomena such as climate change and contamination of water sources from the study of society, economics, and politics.  

This book addresses the highly topical discussion on the potential conflict between profit and purpose, fueled in particular by the 2019 Business Roundtable guidelines. In this sense, it is not a pure profit book but seeks to balance the social and financial goals of a company. Anyone who wants to have a qualified say in the current discussion about profit and purpose should read this book.

We like this book because it has a “reader-friendly” style, which is particularly important for anyone unfamiliar with the subject. This also makes it practical for students of all levels and those interested in exploring a new area of interest.

The main topics of corporate finance are covered, giving detailed explanations of key principles while considering real-life situations by utilising practical examples to illustrate the issues explored. It provides an effective bridge between theory and practical application of techniques used by professional managers to achieve corporate objectives. The inclusion of questions for review and discussion allows the reader to self-test and reflect on their understanding and encourage critical thinking.

Our advice, brew a big mug of tea and make a start.

The framework presented in Corporate Lifecycles deals with the same core issue of Stages and Challenges of Organizational Growth as dealt with in my own book, but from a different perspective. The author is a former academic who has developed his own framework of corporate lifecycles and his methodology of organizations working through them. The book presents a different framework of corporate life cycles and emphasizes the managerial styles that are appropriate to reach stage of the corporate lifecycle. The author has seen and worked with a large number of companies that have employed his methods. He presents his perspective and insights for this role as a participant-observer. 

One of the risks that the Compliance Officers oversee is the risk of money laundering; depending on how it is managed, it is possible to minimize reputational risk. This book helped me pinpoint precisely the necessary elements that must be included in a compliance plan to achieve strong corporate responsibility and compliance culture. By having those controls in place, money laundering and even any other white-crime risk are minimized and, incidentally, reputational risk. If you apply this, the company you work for it's going to be protected, and your boss is going to be happy, a win-win for everyone!

I worked at Arthur Andersen, and I was selected to be among the few teams that started to understand, learn, and apply risk assessments or business risk management methodology. In this book, I came across these concepts again, which are vital to identifying where the risk of money laundering and any other crime may occur. In addition, this book also includes useful information to be considered in the compliance program and how fraud and corruption are related to money laundering. It's a book that provides solid knowledge.

Many people know that American democracy and capitalism have been on a downward spiral for decades. The system is rigged, former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich sounds the alarm throughout his excellent book The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It. He goes deep into these questions as he supports the provocative thesis that despite acrimonious partisan polarization, the real contest is not between the right and left but between democracy and oligarchy; and that the vast majority of citizens (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents) are getting poorer and wield “near-zero” political power. Oligarchs—JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is their embodiment—have amassed enormous sums of capital and political power, which allows them to further rig the system through campaign contributions, successful lobbying, and even criminal actions for which, if caught, they only pay nominal fines.