This is a massive, and massively reported, book. But what’s most impressive is its refreshing balance and evenhandedness. Leonard does not judge the Kochs; he explains them ... Almost as notable, from a journalist’s point of view, is the degree to which Leonard succeeds without the kind of cooperation all authors seek. He appears to have had only limited access to Koch executives, including, it appears, a single interview with Charles Koch. Tackling the biography of a secretive private company like Koch, which has little need to open itself to scrutiny, is a task of herculean difficulty ... writing the history of a private company without full access is akin to scaling El Capitan without handholds. But to a degree I’ve rarely seen, Leonard actually turns this lack of access into a strength. He does it by unspooling a series of granular set pieces and micronarratives, telling the stories of dozens of men and women inside and outside the company ... Each story illustrates one corner of a vast corporate empire ... Not since Andrew Ross Sorkin’s landmark Too Big to Fail...have I said this about a book, but Kochland warrants it: If you’re in business, this is something you need to read.

...an even-handed telling of how the two brothers from Wichita, Kansas, built up Koch Industries ... [Leonard] manages to dig up valuable new material, including evidence of the Kochs’ role in perhaps the earliest known organized conference of climate-change deniers ... Others have chronicled the cap-and-trade fight well, but Leonard penetrates the inner sanctum of the Kochs’ lobbying machine ... Leonard’s grasp of political details isn’t always completely firm ... But Kochland is deeply and authoritatively reported, and, while it can be overly cautious in the conclusions that it draws, it marshals a huge amount of information and uses it to help solve two enduring mysteries.

Kochland is a corporate history, lucidly told. Telling this story as well as Kochland does is harder than it looks, and not just for the obvious reasons ... Leonard doesn’t have much by way of rich narrative material to work with. Memorable stories are usually buoyed by memorable characters, but with few exceptions the Koch employees who talked to Leonard have imbibed the company culture and sound remarkably alike ... Even Charles Koch doesn’t make much of an impression; he seems less charismatic in Kochland than methodical and deliberate — like the engineer he was trained to be ... it’s Leonard’s depictions of Market-Based Management in action that are most illuminating here, and the light they give off is chilling ... Charles Koch calls Market-Based Management 'a way for business to create a harmony of interest with society.' The question Kochland raises is whether this 'harmony of interest' results in a place where anyone without a few billion to spare would actually want to live.

What Kochland...adds to the story is not so much an account of the ways in which the brothers spend their money, but rather, a richly reported tale of how they make it—the inner workings of one of the nation's largest private corporations ... Leonard is able to tell this story with an insider's vantage point ... The prose is occasionally over the top. Do we really need to know about the white marble slabs between urinals in the men's room of a Senate office building? But for the most part, this is fast-paced business history. An episode about ammonia runoff at an oil refinery keeps you turning pages like a John Grisham thriller.

Leonard’s investigation stands out for its dissection of the cultish ethos of a company he calls 'Charles Koch’s privately controlled free-market utopia'. Better than any previous account, it also shows how seamlessly Koch’s worldview ties together his business and political activities ... Kochland is, first and foremost, a portrait of how Charles’s personal obsessions have shaped the family business ... Leonard’s measured book does not offer a simple verdict, but he makes clear that its aggressive focus on pushing profits forward has contributed to some of Koch Industries’ darkest moments ... At 83, Leonard gives us to believe, Koch is more confident than ever that we will all one day be living in Kochland. If so, it will test how many of us share its crown prince’s stomach for volatility.

In Kochland, Christopher Leonard has done an impressive job of breaking through that secrecy and getting insiders as well as outcasts to talk. As a result, Kochland is the most definitive account yet of how one of America’s richest and most powerful families amassed its fortune ... As a chronicle of American capitalism in the 21st century, Kochland makes for compelling, and often scary, reading ... An investigative reporter, Leonard largely sidesteps the question of where he stands on the Kochs’ sway over American public life. But the mountain of evidence he provides, reported in granular detail, should lead readers to draw their own conclusions.

...extraordinary ... a fascinating, in-depth analysis of Koch Industries and its astounding influence and power. Don’t let its 700-page length put you off: Leonard’s book reads like a thriller, and a dark one at that. It’s peopled with myriad characters as fascinating as those in Game of Thrones (and a dictionary of significant people is included) ... Leonard covers a lot of ground, but especially significant is a chapter analyzing Charles Koch’s long-held opposition to climate regulations ... essential reading for anyone concerned about the America our children and grandchildren will inherit.

...a truly exhaustive study ... compelling ... Leonard builds his complex story through a strong narrative style that personalizes the critical challenges Koch and KI faced as the two evolved over the last four decades ... One of Leonard’s most illuminating analyses involves how Koch not merely survived but prospered amidst the banking crisis—or Great Recession—of 2008 ... revealing, if alarming ... Leonard study is exhaustive and engaging, and sometimes overwhelming in terms of the people mentioned and the KI operating units discussed.

...a detail-packed, incisive look into the modern worlds of American commerce and politics ... Leonard goes a long way toward lifting the veils surrounding Koch to correct and expand the public record ... In many ways, Kochland is as sprawling as the company and the family it covers ... will Koch’s philosophy and financial prowess prevail at the ballot box [in 2020]? Based on the portrait of power that Leonard paints in Kochland, the upcoming showdown could be epic. S

Leonard details the company’s commodities trading, expansion efforts, and union busting. He shows how Koch’s political power has intimidated elected officials, elected friendly ones, and influenced both tax and environmental policy to its advantage ... Based on six years of research and with a fast-paced writing style that interweaves multiple stories, this illuminating work on the exceedingly influential Koch and his company will be welcomed by all readers of business or politics. Leonard does for Koch what Andrew Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail did for the 2008 financial crisis.

Ultimately, Leonard’s intricately developed and extensively researched history of the Koch empire is a colossal corporate biography that sheds important light on this closely guarded enterprise while simultaneously scrutinizing the nefarious underpinnings of American economic policies and practices.

A massively reported deep dive ... Leonard is especially skilled at explicating the politics as well as at delineating how Koch Industries dominated industrial sectors, with natural gas extraction via fracking a timely recent example. This impressively researched and well-rendered book also serves as a biography of Charles Koch, with Leonard providing an evenhanded treatment of the tycoon. Leonard’s work is on par with Steve Coll’s Private Empire and even Ida Tarbell’s enduring classic The History of the Standard Oil Company ... A landmark book.

The company’s ruthlessness is spotlighted in his accounts of Koch’s sometimes violent battles with unions; Leonard profiles workers whose wages and security dwindled while computerized regimentation and staffing cuts made their jobs grueling and unsafe. Leonard’s superb investigations and even-handed, clear-eyed reportage stand out.