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History of Royal Dutch Shell. Volume ?, From Challenger to Joint Industry Leader, 1890-1939. By Joost Jonker and Jan Luiten van Zanden. 570 pp. ISBN: 978-0-199-29878-5. Volume 2, Powering the Hydrocarbon Revolution, 1939-1973. By Stephen Howarth and Joost Jonker. 514 pp. ISBN: 978-0-199-29879-2. Volume 3, Keeping Competitive in Turbulent Markets, 1973-2007. By Keetie Sluyterman. 514 pp. ISBN: 978-0-199-29880-8. Vol. 4, Appendices, Figures and Explanations, Collective Bibliography, and Index. By Jan Luiten van Zanden. 144 pp. ISBN: 978-0-199-23440-0. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Figures, tables, notes, illustrations, bibliography, index, DVDs. Cloth, $250.00 for 4 vols.
Reviewed by James Bamberg
If size counts for anything, this gigantic set of four volumes ought to address some of the fascinating conundrums that have for years hung over the history of one of the world's most famous and remarkable companies. Royal Dutch Shell's success has long presented something of a puzzle, particularly to outsiders bewildered by the firm's impenetrably complex dual-nationality management structure. Its byzantine system prompted the Financial Times once to comment that Royal Dutch Shell "has always been the company which should not work," yet it seemed to achieve better results than virtually any other company on the planet. How can this paradox be explained? And how much of Royal Dutch Shell's past success can be attributed to the firm's creator, Henri Deterding, the flawed business genius who has for years been a legend in need of analysis? Explaining these and other elements of Royal Dutch Shell's success, and of its failures, provides a stiff but stimulating challenge for the team of historians commissioned by the company to write a full-length history.
The first volume addresses the Deterding legend with a critical edge that is lacking in F. C. Gerretson's earlier, more idealized representation of the heroic entrepreneur. The authors, Joost Jonker and Jan Luiten van Zanden, discuss Deterding 's personal Nazi sympathies, for example, as well as the ways in which Royal Dutch Shell treated its Jewish employees in Germany in the Nazi era. They also question Deterding's business acumen, particularly in his later years, when his erratic temper, paranoia, poor judgment, and egomania became liabilities to the firm. The balance between Deterding's extremely creative and destructive impulses is thus revised, tilting the scale much more heavily...