The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World
About this audiobook
From the bestselling coauthor of The Money and the Power—the inside story of the Bechtel family and the empire they’ve controlled since the construction of the Hoover Dam
The tale of the Bechtel family dynasty is a classic American business story. It begins with Warren A. “Dad” Bechtel, who led a consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam. From that auspicious start, the family and its eponymous company would go on to build the world, from the construction of airports in Hong Kong and Doha, to pipelines and tunnels in Alaska and Europe, to mining and energy operations around the globe.
Today Bechtel is one of the largest privately held corporations in the world, enriched and empowered by a long history of government contracts and the privatization of public works, made possible by an unprecedented revolving door between its San Francisco headquarters and Washington. Bechtel executives John McCone, Caspar Weinberger, and George P. Shultz segued from leadership at the company to positions as director of the CIA, secretary of defense, and secretary of state, respectively.
Like all stories of empire building, the rise of Bechtel presents a complex and riveting narrative. In The Profiteers, Sally Denton exposes Bechtel’s secret world and one of the biggest business and political stories of our time.
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About the author
Sally Denton is the author of eight books of investigative journalism, including the bestselling American Massacre, The Money and the Power, and The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, among other awards. She has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships including a Woodrow Wilson Public Scholar Fellowship, the Hoover Media Fellowship at Stanford, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Black Mountain Institute Fellowship, and the Lannan Foundation Literary Grant.
Bernadette Dunne is the winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.
