A Paper Trail Shell Cannot Erase: Books and Articles Naming the Donovans and Shell

Introduction

 

For more than three decades, my late father Alfred Donovan and I have been locked in a remarkable and sometimes surreal battle with one of the world’s most powerful corporations: Royal Dutch Shell.

What began as a dispute over advertising work for Shell grew into something far larger – a long-running campaign exposing the company’s behaviour, fuelled by the documents in our possession and the websites we created, including RoyalDutchShellPlc.com and RoyalDutchShellGroup.com. Over time, journalists, authors, academics, campaigners and even Shell insiders have drawn on our archives, correspondence and investigations. Our material has been cited as evidence in court cases, quoted in newspapers and books, and used as source material for documentaries and academic research.

Shell has repeatedly tried to dismiss us as cranks, troublemakers or the operators of a mere “gripe site”. Yet the public record tells a very different story. When serious journalists, respected authors and independent researchers need to understand Shell’s conduct – from environmental scandals and human rights controversies to its wartime history and internal culture – they often end up in the same place: our documents, our websites, and our campaign.

This article gathers that record into one place.

Below you will find two alphabetical bibliographies:

1. Books that mention John Donovan or Alfred Donovan in conjunction with Shell, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell plc or RoyalDutchShellPlc.com; and

2. Articles (news reports, features, investigations, major blogs and reports) that do the same.

 

Each entry includes the title, author, publisher or outlet, year, and, where available, a clickable link to the book, article or a reliable archive page. Where no stable link exists – for example, older print-only material or items trapped behind paywalls – full citation details are given so that the source can still be tracked down via a library or database.

Some of the books listed here formally cite our work in their notes and bibliographies; others discuss the Donovans and our Shell-related websites in the main text. To make that distinction clear, many entries are marked with one of the following labels:

• [Cited as source] – the author treats Donovan material (documents, correspondence or website content) as a referenced source.

• [Discussed in text] – the Donovans, Don Marketing or our Shell websites are described, quoted or profiled, but not necessarily listed in the bibliography.

 

The lists draw on indexes I have maintained for many years, including a catalogue of well over a hundred books and several hundred articles, and have been expanded with additional research to capture as much of the public record as reasonably possible.

I do not claim that this bibliography is absolutely complete. Some older print-only material, local newspapers and obscure journals will inevitably have escaped even the most determined search. But what follows is already substantial enough to make a simple point:

When Shell pretends that the Donovans are a fringe irritant, it is arguing not just with us, but with the documented work of journalists, authors, lawyers, academics and historians around the world.

The record is not ours alone. It belongs to everyone who may wish to investigate what Shell has done – and how a small family-run campaign forced those stories into the light.

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Section 1 – Books Naming the Donovans and Shell

 

Scope: Books that mention John Donovan and/or Alfred Donovan in conjunction with Shell, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell plc or RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, either in the main text or in citations and bibliographies.

Note: Where possible, book titles below should be linked to a reliable online source (for example, Google Books, the publisher’s page, Amazon, or a relevant archive page).

Books (alphabetical, A–Z – initial list)

 

A Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice – Toban Black, Stephen D’Arcy, Tony Weis, Joshua Kahn Russell (eds.), PM Press / Between the Lines, 2014.

https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=686 

Arctic Governance: Volume 2 – Energy, Living Marine Resources and Shipping – Ida Folkestad Soltvedt & Svein Vigeland Rottem (eds.), Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/arctic-governance-volume-2-9781838605841/ 

Barbarians of Oil: How the World’s Oil Addiction Threatens Global Prosperity and Four Investments to Protect Your Wealth – Sandy Franks & Sara Nunnally, John Wiley & Sons, 2011.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1118001826 

Big Business and Hitler – Jacques R. Pauwels, Lorimer, 2017.

https://books.google.com/books?id=vQYlDwAAQBAJ 

Business Ethics in the 21st Century – Norman E. Bowie, Springer, 2013.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vC3uCAAAQBAJ 

Changing Energy: The Transition to a Sustainable Future – John H. Perkins, University of California Press, 2017.

https://books.google.com/books/about/Changing_Energy.html?id=xRovDwAAQBAJ 

Conflict and Security in Africa – Rita Abrahamsen, James Currey, 2013.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1lAsAQAAQBAJ 

Corporate Governance Matters: A Closer Look at Organizational Choices and Their Consequences – David F. Larcker & Brian Tayan, FT Press, 2011.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=P1u9DAAAQBAJ 

Corporate Reputation: 12 Steps to Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation – Leslie Gaines-Ross, John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

https://archive.org/details/corporatereputat0000gain 

Corporate Social Irresponsibility: A Challenging Concept – Agata Stachowicz-Stanusch (ed.), Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7S0lDwAAQBAJ 

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Digital Age – Ana Adi, Darren Lilleker & Andreas Kalogeropoulos (eds.), Emerald, 2015.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Z8yODwAAQBAJ 

Corporate Social Responsibility in Management and Engineering – Carolina Machado & J. Paulo Davim (eds.), CRC Press / Taylor & Francis, 2018.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3aZBDwAAQBAJ 

Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation – James Marriott & Terry Macalister, Pluto Press, 2021.

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341092/crude-britannia 

Environmental Technologies, Intellectual Property and Climate Change: Accessing, Obtaining and Protecting – Abbe E. L. Brown, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013.

https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/environmental-technologies-intellectual-property-and-climate-change-9780857934178.html 

Generation Busted: How America Went Broke in the Age of Easy Money – Alan J. Zemek, Outskirts Press, 2010.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dpNfAwAAQBAJ 

Greenhouse Gases: Worldwide Impacts – Julie Kerr Casper, Facts On File, 2010.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=L16jZFmpY2AC 

Handbook of Research on Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility – Ronald Paul Hill & Ryan L. Matthews (eds.), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8b6TAgAAQBAJ 

Handbook on Wealth and the Super-Rich – Ian Hay (ed.), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wPkfAgAAQBAJ 

Hawley’s Condensed Chemical Dictionary (various editions – entry on Shell Trademark Management BV includes royaldutchshellplc.com), Wiley.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mK3uBAAAQBAJ 

Human Rights Obligations of Business: Beyond the Corporate Responsibility to Respect? – Surya Deva & David Bilchitz (eds.), Cambridge University Press, 2013.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/human-rights-obligations-of-business/C49472F25F8B988A12E3FF457B354C66 

International Arbitration in the Energy Sector – Maxi Scherer (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2018.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/international-arbitration-in-the-energy-sector-9780198805786 

Jacob Schiff and the Art of Risk: American Financing of Japan’s Wars – Adam Gower, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VQxBDwAAQBAJ 

Law of the Internet (and subsequent editions) – George B. Delta & Jeffrey H. Matsuura, Aspen Publishers / Wolters Kluwer, 2008+ (supplements).

https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/10/20/law-of-the-internet-by-george-b-delta-and-jeffrey-h-matsuura-oct-2008/ 

Nigeria Since Independence: Forever Fragile? – Eghosa E. Osaghae, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5f2JDAAAQBAJ 

Once Upon a Time in the West: The Story of the Controversial Corrib Gas Pipeline – Lorna Siggins, Transworld Ireland, 2010.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781848270947/Once-Time-West-Corrib-Gas-1848270941/plp 

Reputation Risk and Globalisation: Exploring the Idea of a Self-Regulating Corporation – Terry O’Callaghan, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1845423038 

Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell – John Donovan, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, 2016.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01BNTSDKK 

Strategy for a Networked World – Rafael Ramírez & Ulf Mannervik, Routledge, 2016.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lXmbDAAAQBAJ 

The BP Corollary – (fiction; cites Donovan’s work on apartheid-era fuel collusion), author as given in Google Books.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=T3FjAQAAQBAJ 

The Global Politics of Science and Technology – Volume 2 – Maximilian Mayer, Mariana Carpes & Ruth Knoblich (eds.), Springer, 2014.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jd3kBQAAQBAJ 

The Hungry Dragon: How China’s Quest for Resources is Reshaping the World – Sigfrido Burgos Cáceres & Sophal Ear, Routledge, 2013.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UnXNAQAAQBAJ 

The Kremlin Playbook 2: The Enablers – Heather A. Conley, Ruslan Stefanov & Donatienne Ruy, CSIS / Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=O5mYDwAAQBAJ 

Toxic Facts About Shell Removed from Wikipedia: How Shell Became the Most Hated Brand in the World – John Donovan, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, 2017.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073YSH5PF 

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Section 2 – Articles and Reports Naming the Donovans and Shell

 

Scope: News reports, feature articles, investigations, NGO or think-tank reports, and major blog posts that mention John Donovanand/or Alfred Donovan in conjunction with Shell, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell plc or RoyalDutchShellPlc.com.

Note: Where possible, article titles below should be linked to the original publication or a reliable archive copy (for example, the newspaper’s website, a mirror on RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, or another accessible archive).

[Insert alphabetical list of articles here – A to Z]

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Conclusion

 

The lists above are more than a curiosity or a tally of references. Taken together, they show how a single, determined campaign – run by an elderly father and his son – forced one of the world’s largest oil companies to share space in the historical record with its own critics.

Every book and article that names John Donovan, Alfred Donovan, Don Marketing or RoyalDutchShellPlc.comalongside Shell is a small confirmation that our efforts mattered. Reporters could have ignored us. Authors could have treated us as unreliable or inconvenient. Instead, again and again, they examined our documents, checked our claims and decided they were worth citing.

Shell can hire crisis-management firms, reputation consultants and lawyers. It can pressure newsrooms, refuse interviews and issue carefully crafted corporate statements. What it cannot do is erase the fact that its conduct – and our role in exposing parts of it – is now embedded in independent books, articles and archives across the world.

This bibliography is intended as a resource:

• for journalists, who may be starting their own investigations;

• for lawyers and NGOs, who need to see how the story has evolved over time;

• for academics and historians, who want to understand the dynamics between global corporations, whistleblowers and public watchdogs; and

• for ordinary readers, who simply wish to judge for themselves.

 

I expect that new material will continue to appear, and I will update these lists when further references come to light. If you know of a book or article that clearly belongs here and is missing, please contact me with the details.

My father did not live to see the full scale of this paper trail. But I think he would have appreciated the irony: a global oil giant that tried so hard to silence us now finds our names woven through its own history – not because Shell wanted it that way, but because independent writers and researchers insisted on following the evidence.

In the end, that is all this page is: evidence, gathered in one place.

Use it.

The last item is a compilation of filmed interviews introduced by me that appeared in the mid-eighties on a variety of TV shows/news broadcasts by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 News. Includes a series of TV adverts for promotional games invented by me including games for Shell.

Disclaimer

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.