Two years after publishing his New York Times bestseller The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel, Doug Brunt is back with a follow up about Diesel’s similarly fascinating – and forgotten! – contemporary Emanuel Nobel.
What happened to Nobel’s oil empire in Russia? That is the incredible story that Doug explores in The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World.
From the dawn of the Victorian Age to World War I and the Russian Revolution, The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel shines a new light on more than a hundred years of history as Doug chronicles one of the world’s most influential men, whose name has basically been stricken from memory.
The History
This week, Doug announced The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel is now available for pre-order (it hits shelves in May), and the reveal has been a family affair. Megyn lent her cinematography skills to the teaser below, which asks the all-important question: Why have we never heard of Emanuel Nobel?
As Doug explained, Nobel was “a Swedish guy living in Russia” when he and his family built the largest petroleum company in the world. By 1900, it was larger than Standard Oil. During World War I, they “controlled more oil than anyone else on the planet.” And yet few know his name.
So, why isn’t Nobel mentioned among the likes of John Rockefeller and others? It’s because something happened to him and his companies toward the end of WWI – and that is the story Doug uncovers in The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel.
Learn More
Doug has been working on this book since finishing The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel, and his research took him, Megyn, and the kids all the way to Sweden last summer. You can see pictures from that trip and learn more about the book at DouglasBrunt.com.