Kochland

By Christopher Leonard

Shortlisted for the 2019 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year.

The extraordinary account of how the secretive Koch Industries became one of the largest private companies in the world.

Koch Industries, the sprawling industrial conglomerate owned by Charles and David Koch, specializes in the kinds of stunningly profitable businesses that undergird every aspect of modern life: it controls the nitrogen fertilizer that puts food on your table, the fibres in your clothes, the building materials that make your homes and offices, and the microchips that drive your life online.

For five decades, CEO Charles Koch has kept Koch Industries quietly operating in deepest secrecy, with a view towards very, very long-term profits. He’s a brilliant businessman: patient with earnings, able to learn from his mistakes, determined that his employees develop a reverence for free-market ruthlessness, and a master disruptor.

Seven years in the making, Kochland tells the ambitious tale of how one private company consolidated power over half a century – and, in doing so, helped transform capitalism into something that feels deeply alienating to many Americans today.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781471186981

Christopher Leonard

Christopher Leonard is a business reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Meat Racket and Kochland, which won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.

Reviews for Kochland

[oldbookswine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you want a clearer understanding of how Trump taxes help the super rich, this is the book. If you want to study how American economy works, read this book. I found the book very informative as I watched the impeachment hearing. Many of the politicians involved were mentioned in the book under how Kock got into political activities. Well worth the time to read and understand part of the economy in the USA

[mrdickie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I lived in Wichita, KS for three years in the late 1950s. I think I recall that Fred Koch the founder of Koch Industries had an office building on Douglas street in downtown Wichita. Fred was one of the founders of the John Birch Society. The book is about his children: Fred, Charles, William and David. Son, Charles became the CEO of the privately held, Koch Industries and very active in political action organizations such as Americans for Posterity. I enjoyed reading this 574 page book and learning about the influence of the Koch family on our country.