Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America

Koch Industries is everywhere: from the fertilizers that make our food to the chemicals that make our pipes to the synthetics that make our carpets and diapers to the Wall Street trading in all these commodities. For five decades, CEO Charles Koch has kept Koch Industries quietly operating in deepest secrecy with a view toward very, very long-term profits - profits that made him and his brother David together richer than Bill Gates.

Seven years in the making, Kochland reads like a true-life thriller, telling the ambitious tale of how one private company quietly disrupted every industry it conquered, and became one of the biggest private companies in the world. In doing so, Christopher Leonard uses the story of Koch's ascent to tell the story of how corporate America consolidated its power over half a century - and how it helped transform capitalism into something that feels deeply alienating to many Americans today.