Books About Shell: An Expanded Bibliography
Introduction
Royal Dutch Shell, now Shell plc, has generated an unusually large body of literature stretching from official corporate histories and executive memoirs to academic studies, environmental investigations, human-rights accounts and books written by people directly involved in disputes with the company.
The bibliography below includes:
- histories commissioned or published by Shell;
- independent corporate histories;
- biographies of important Shell figures;
- books about particular Shell businesses and projects;
- books concerning Nigeria, Ogoni and Ken Saro-Wiwa;
- books about Brent Spar and Corrib;
- studies of Shell’s celebrated scenario-planning system;
- broader histories of the international oil industry in which Shell is a significant subject;
- and Amazon Kindle books by John Donovan concerning his long-running relationship with Shell.
The descriptions below are original summaries rather than reproductions of publishers’ copyrighted descriptions.
Early Royal Dutch and Shell Histories
1934
An International Oil Man
Author: Sir Henri Deterding, as told to Stanley Naylor
Format: Print
A new daily investigation into the documents behind the battle over Shell, oil pollution and accountability in the Niger Delta
Shell is currently losing the “bot war” in reputational and narrative terms, even though it remains far stronger in conventional power (money, lawyers, regulators) than John Donovan. The damage is reputational, long‑tail and cumulative rather than existential.
“Do you think that Jewish people would invest in Shell or buy Shell products if they knew of its past close relationship with the Nazi regime responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews, for which there has been no apology by Shell?”: “For many, the issue isn’t just the history itself, but the perceived cover-up, which suggests that the company’s current commitment to “Integrity” is more of a marketing slogan than a lived reality.”
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