The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel - by Douglas Brunt (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Instant New York Times Bestseller!

Why did one of the world's most successful business titans, an oil magnate who rivaled the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, disappear from history? The author of the acclaimed bestseller The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel has the enthralling answer.

With the exception of the tsar, Emanuel Nobel was likely the wealthiest man in early 20th-century Russia, and one of the wealthiest in the world. Over three generations, he and his family grew the Russian petroleum industry into a behemoth that surpassed even John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The Nobels imported the best practices from America and improved on them, transforming every aspect of the industry. Though Emanuel's uncle Alfred would become world famous thanks to his creation of the Nobel Prize, the even more successful Nobels in Russia have been largely forgotten. The reason why is one of history's most gripping untold stories.

Working in the oil fields of southern Russia at the same time as Emanuel was a troubled young man from a peasant family in Georgia. Though educated to be a priest, he took a different path when he discovered the revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx. In and out of prison in Siberia, charismatic and committed, always at the center of a fight, this young man would become known to the world as Joseph Stalin, a leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and eventually one of the most brutal dictators in history. Directly in Stalin's crosshairs was Emanuel Nobel, who represented everything Stalin despised about capitalism. As the world turned upside down, Emanuel began to plan a life-or-death escape from Russia. But would he make it out in time? And what would be the fate of the immense empire he and his family had built?

Sweeping across more than a hundred years of history, from the dawn of the Victorian Age to World War I to the Russian Revolution and beyond, this captivating book chronicles one of the most influential men in history, a man whose name has been stricken from memory, and returns him thrillingly to life.

Review Quotes

"Douglas Brunt has the gift of writing histories that read like novels."
--National Review

"Douglas Brunt tells the extraordinary story of the Nobels--not Alfred of the Nobel Prize but his brother Ludvig and nephew Emanuel, who built one of the world's greatest industrial enterprises of the nineteenth century and a giant oil company that rivaled Rockefeller's--only to see it all shattered in their fatal collision with Joseph Stalin and the Russian Revolution. A haunting elegy for a very different Russia that might have been."
--Daniel Yergin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power and The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations

"This true international family saga should be a movie - and taught in schools!"
--Zibby Owens

"Bravo. [A] fascinating dynastic saga of the great prizes of the West: power, dynamite, and oil. Gripping."
--Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity

"Brunt brings Nobel back to life in this excellent story. There is a sense in Brunt's writing that he is having so much fun putting this narrative together. It is infectious." --Brendan Dowd, History Nerds United

"A brilliant epic about Edwardian industry and infamy. Brunt paints a thrilling picture of another overlooked titan. In his hands, Emanuel Nobel's life at the heart of the Romanov empire reads like a political thriller. I could not put this book down." --Gareth Russell, author of The Six Loves of James I

"Before Alfred Nobel created his prize, his father was siring the richest family in Czarist Russia. Well-deserved attention to a little-known slice of history." --Kirkus

About the Author

Douglas Brunt is the New York Times bestselling author of The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel and The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel, and host of the top-rated SiriusXM author podcast Dedicated with Doug Brunt. A Philadelphia native, he lives in Connecticut with his wife and three children. Visit DouglasBrunt.com for more information.