May 21, 2026 • 16 mins
A great visit with NYT bestselling author Douglas Brunt about the collision between Emanuel Nobel (yes, that Nobel family) and Joseph Stalin.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
All right, let's get going.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the third and final hour of the Morning Show
with Preston Scott. Good to be with you this morning, friends.
It is Show fifty six eight. Jose running the broadcast
as always, and I am here relegated in Studio one B,
and I want to share quickly how this came about.
You know that I'm a nerd on history. You know
that I only do interviews with authors of history nonfiction.
(00:28):
I do not want I just don't waste my time
reading novels. Hardly ever. And a listener said, have you
seen Douglas Brunt's new book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I said no.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
She said, well, it's coming out in May, and this
is like two months ago. And so I reached out
to Simon and Schuster and joining me on the program
is the author of the book, Douglas Brunt. Douglas, you
are making at least one listener like overjoyed being on
this program. Big fan of yours, she is, Thanks for
making time for me this.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
How are you today?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I'm great, my pleasure. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Set the scene for the book.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Here, talk to us about what is happening in history
in the area known as Russia today and at times
the Soviet Union. What was going on in the nineteenth
and early twentieth century that we need to know.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, Emmanuel Nobel, I think folks will recognize the last
name is the nephew of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of
dynamite and the person who established Nobel prizes. So Emmanuel
is the nephew who is living in Russia, and you
know present, it's a story. The effort to capture the
sources of energy around the world is the story of
(01:43):
our times. You know, we open up a newspaper today,
it's on every page of Venezuela, Iran. Russia is essentially
one of the largest suppliers of energy in the world,
and it's been that way for more than one hundred years.
Emanueal Nobel pioneered the Russian oil industry in the south
of the Russian Empire what's modern day Azerbaijan, by the
(02:06):
Caspian Sea and the Caucasu was part of the Russian
Empire at that time. He bought land there in the
eighteen seventies, just after Rockefeller had established standard oil in America,
and he took the American playbook to how you develop
the oil drilling apparatus and the refining infrastructure, and the
pipelines and the railroads, and he implemented the American playbook
(02:28):
in the south of Russia that was the most abundant
petroleum area in the world. And we don't really know
the name of Manual Nobel today. We only know Alfred
who was outside of Russia. But by the Great War,
by nineteen fourteen, Emmanuel Nobel controlled more oil than anyone
in the world. His oil company that he built along
(02:49):
the Caspian Sea was larger than standard oil by World
War One. And then the collision he had with Joseph
Stalin and the Communists around the time of the Russian
Revolution in nineteen seven. Team that coalition and what Stalin
did to Emmanuel Nobel was the inspiration for George Orwell's
nineteen eighty four, that novel that he wrote. I know
you mentioned don't read a lot of novels, but this
(03:10):
one you probably know about it.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh yeah, absolutely, there's.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
A there's a passage in there where they say, renamed
the streets and they tore down the statues and they
rewrote the history. That's that what Orwell was talking about.
There is what Stalin and the Communists did to all
the industrialists in the Russian Empire when the Communists took
over and nationalized all the industry. Nobel was the biggest
industrialist in the Russian Empire at had time. They essentially
(03:33):
nationalized and stole his whole business Empire and renamed it
Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company became the Soviet Petroleum Company. And
the story of Emmanuel Nobel has been lost to the
West until this book.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
We got a short little moment here before we take
a quick break, Douglas, But how did this story fall
into your lap? What what lit the fire for this?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
My prior book was about Rudolph Diesel, who invented a
diesel engine, and he and he disappeared right before World
War One, And when he brought the diesel engine to
the world in eighteen ninety seven, he licensed it by
national territory. And the person who took the license to
the diesel engine for the Russian Empire was an annual Nobel.
So I first stumbled across these Russian Nobels that no
one's ever heard of. We only know Alfred right, you know.
(04:21):
But there was this whole larger industrial concern of the
other side of the Nobel family, and I discovered them
through Rudolph Diesel back with.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Author Douglas Brunt. He's a New York Times bestseller of
the book The Last Empire of Emmanual Nobel. Douglas how
do you resurrect and research a part of history, not
only from Russia, but the Stalin era where they notoriously
made people disappear.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
There are a couple of good ways to go about it.
The first after nineteen ninety one, when the Soviet Union
felt a lot of archives became available to the West
that had great in for me nation on Stalin's for
early years things that were harder to acquire before nineteen
ninety one. He kind of hid some of his early
days because he was basically a gangster. He was born
in the country of Georgia in the south of the
(05:13):
Russian Empire, the caspimc, so he actually grew up right
next to these crazy oil fields of the Nobel's. The
other large oil concern at that time in the south
of Russia was run by Rothschild family, So it's kind
of the Nobels and the Rothschild and Stalins worked in
the Rothschild and Nobel oil fields, and he was also
sort of running protection screen schemes and robbing payroll trucks
(05:34):
and you know all this crazy stuff where he would
take those that money and ship it off to Lenin
to try to help fund the Bolshevik party. So he
was essentially a gangster and has worked to conceal that,
you know, early part of his life. But there was
also a lot of great, you know, real treasures to
research in the Nobel history that made it out of
(05:55):
Azerbaijan and back who modern day as Vajehan that was
been part of the Russian Empire. A lot of information
it's made it out to Stockholm in Sweden, which is
where the Nobel family had originated. The grandfather of Emmanuel
was from Stockholm, and Alfred Nobel had returned to Sweden
as well, so there's a lot of stuff from the
Alfred Nobel side, but also the Russian Nobels in Sweden.
(06:19):
So I spent a lot of time in archives around
Stockholm where they had pulled some of that material out
of Baku, old photos of the oil operations, and they
actually designed the very first oil tanker in the world.
People you know, well that can't be done. But the
Nobel is actually designed steel cisterns inside the hull of
(06:41):
ships that could you know, survive the pounding of the
open ocean. They were the first to do that and
really stunned standard oil because suddenly they're sending enormous quantities
of oil across the oceans to you know, markets around
the world, and so there was tons of information there.
I spent a lot of time in Stockholm sifting through
all that and it was a really fun part of
book together.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
This might be like stupid question, but are there any
living descendants of Emmanuel Nobel?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, he did, he never had kids, but there are
tons of Nobels around the world now that are still
involved with the Nobel Foundation and the awarding of the prize.
But the kids are all from his from his siblings. Okay,
Alfred had no kids and Emmanuel had no kids, but
there were other Nobel brothers who did have lots of kids,
(07:31):
So there are hundreds of novels that can sort of
tie back to the family.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I would imagine writing a book like this. I mean,
there's so much intrigue when you start weaving in the
story of the Soviet Union and the expansion of Stalinism.
But I would imagine it you become almost like a
friend to Emmanuel Nobel as you're researching this What surprised
you the most as you learned about this man.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Well, that's exactly right. You read all the letters and
the journal entries, and you do start to develop a
connection with the person, even though you know he died
nearly one hundred years ago. One thing that surprised me
was how involved he was with the turn of Russia
from the Tsars of the Romanov dynasty into communist Soviet Russia.
(08:24):
And it makes sense when you think about because he
controlled the oil, and oil was key. You know, World
War one was the first mechanized war, the first war
where we had planes and tanks and trucks and ships
running fuel oil instead of poll and so everyone needed
the oil. And when the Russian Revolution happened, Lenin and
(08:45):
Stalin were thinking, we need to nationalize all the oil,
but we need the help of the oil industrialists otherwise,
you know, we don't know how to pump oil and
refine it. We need these guys to help us. So
Emmanuel Nobel is a refugee in this resort town in
southern Russia that's buffered by the White Army that opposes communism.
And he's writing to the British, who are, you know,
(09:06):
just wrapping up World War One. They're sort of figuring
out the peace terms. And he's like, the British currently
hold Backou where all the oil is in southern Russia.
But there's only about a thousand British troops, which is
nowhere near enough to keep the Red Army, Stalin's Red
Army out of there. And so he writes to the
British government and says, Stalin is coming for the oil
in Bakou. You need to reinforce your position. A thousand
(09:27):
troops is not going to get it done. He's writing
this in the spring of nineteen nineteen, and he says,
by August of nineteen nineteen, Stalin will be here to
take the oil. You've got to get more troops. Here
Churchill is saying the same thing. Churchill's arguing that the
British is send in one hundred thousand troops to Russia.
They can nip this entire communist thing in the butt.
It'll never happen with only one hundred thousand troops, which
(09:47):
is not you know, significant but not much compared to
what they just went through in World War One. But
there's no appetite to do it. They just had this
four year brutal war. They don't want to mess around
in Russian politics and you know, establish a new government there.
They don't send its troops. Things play out exactly as
Emmanual Nobel said they would. Stalin does get there, he
does get the oil, The Reds win the Russian Civil War,
(10:09):
and we have a communist government, but became in a breath.
You know, imagine in a twentieth century in which communism
never appears. Wow, Communism didn't exist anywhere on the planet
until Lenin put it into place in Russia in nineteen seventeen.
But imagine if it couldn't happen, there'd be no communists Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam.
None of it would have happened if the British had
(10:31):
listened to Emmanual Nobel and Churchill.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
British still aren't listening to much good wisdom these days.
Hang on, Douglas, We're going to continue our discussion The
Last Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. The author Douglas Burnt with
me and the book available, you can get it at
your favorite bookseller. Besides writing New York Times bestsellers. It's like,
(10:56):
oh and by the way, along with that. Doug so
Us brunt our guest is host of the top rated
Serious exam Author podcast Dedicated with Douglas Brunt. All Right,
tell us a little bit about that real quick.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That's a really fun show, and it's a great sort
of side hustle that I have because you're writing is
a fairly solitary gig. You know, it is some research
and I travel around a bit. I mean, a few
people writing, but mostly I'm in my office. So that
the show dedicated that I do, it's comes out of
the podcast on YouTube and on serious Radio. I interview
(11:33):
great writers. So it's a chance to sort of get
out of my little bunker and meet some writers that
I really admire. And I've had fiction and non fiction,
you know, everything from Lee Child to Ammore Tolls to
Eric Larson and David Grant and others, and so I
have them on the show. We always do it in
person on set, and we start each show with me
(11:56):
fixing the guest's favorite cocktail. So Eric Larson had a
Rye Manhattan, Lee Child of Chantaigne any more tolls was
the Negroni And so I'll fix the drink pack there
on the set and then we'll just have a drink together.
And for the audience, it's like sitting next to us
in a bar as we kind of shoot the breeze
and we talk about the writer's life and work and
(12:16):
interests and some of the recent books. But it's more
of a conversation about how they approached the craft and
how they got started in writing, and it's just a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I want to jump in on that and kind of
tie it back to our topic here, which is your
latest book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel, again available
at all the book outlets, friends that you might use.
Did you get were there moments as you're researching and
or writing where I just kind of imagined that as
(12:49):
I was going through the book and reading it, there
had to be moments where you almost pushed back in
your chair and almost maybe even out loud, went wow,
as you just kind of pulled together this piece of information,
learned that piece of information. Did you have those moments
and what are those like?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
It is It's like it's like the nerdy side of
Indiana Jones. You know, when you discover like a gold
nugget of information and like, this is even crazier than
I had realized when I set out to take on
this story. You know, I knew I had a great story,
and then I had to cover something like, oh my gosh,
it's it's crazier than I knew. Yeah, you know, letters
from Nobel to Balfour describing what's going on with Dalin.
(13:32):
You know, I knew there was a connection with Emmanuel
Nobel and Stalin, but I didn't realize how deeply personal
it was, or his involvement in you know, the Revolution
and the Civil War and the outcomes and the significance
of his oil concern. So, yeah, everyone's wanting you. You
uncover some page out of an archive and you to
someone else you think, oh, well, that's kind of interesting.
(13:54):
But in the context of the story that I'm pulling together,
the connections I can draw from that one piece of
information can be fantastic. And so those are very exciting moments, you.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Know, when I got the advanced reader's version, and for
those of you that might not know, this is what
they push out to the media for us to get
a chance to look at the book in advance. It's
not the final, final, final copy, but it's pretty much
the final copy. I read the prologue, Doug, and I
just was like, oh wait, you can't stop there. It
was like the most incredible written teaser, and it set
(14:27):
the stage for the rest of that book so brilliantly.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Well, what do you want people to take away? Big picture?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Obviously, the nuggets inside the book will speak for themselves.
But if there was something that you kind of hope
that people glean from this, what is it?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Well, I would say that the collision between Emmanuel Nobel
and Joseph Stalin is the greatest sliding doors moment in history. Okay,
the idea that Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky and communism
in Russia was the least likely outcome, and through a
(15:05):
series of totally bizarre events and things sort of breaking
the way of the Communists, they do prevail by Emmanuel
Nobel and his oil in the south of Russia are
at the heart of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
It's a wonderful story and I'm really grateful that you
made the time for us this morning, Douglas, and best
of success on your book and its sales, and the
next time you write, make sure the folks over at
Simon and Schuster look us up.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Absolutely, what a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Thanks so much for having me on my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Thank you, Sir Douglas Brunt with us and again this
interview will be on our Conversations podcast. And the book
is The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. What did you
do when you heard the whole communist movement could have
been snuffed if they'd listen to Churchill? A history altering
(16:02):
moment of inaction by the Brits. I'm gonna be talking
about that for a while this Morning Show with Preston
Scott
All right, let's get going.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the third and final hour of the Morning Show
with Preston Scott. Good to be with you this morning, friends.
It is Show fifty six eight. Jose running the broadcast
as always, and I am here relegated in Studio one B,
and I want to share quickly how this came about.
You know that I'm a nerd on history. You know
that I only do interviews with authors of history nonfiction.
(00:28):
I do not want I just don't waste my time
reading novels. Hardly ever. And a listener said, have you
seen Douglas Brunt's new book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I said no.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
She said, well, it's coming out in May, and this
is like two months ago. And so I reached out
to Simon and Schuster and joining me on the program
is the author of the book, Douglas Brunt. Douglas, you
are making at least one listener like overjoyed being on
this program. Big fan of yours, she is, Thanks for
making time for me this.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
How are you today?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I'm great, my pleasure. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Set the scene for the book.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Here, talk to us about what is happening in history
in the area known as Russia today and at times
the Soviet Union. What was going on in the nineteenth
and early twentieth century that we need to know.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, Emmanuel Nobel, I think folks will recognize the last
name is the nephew of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of
dynamite and the person who established Nobel prizes. So Emmanuel
is the nephew who is living in Russia, and you
know present, it's a story. The effort to capture the
sources of energy around the world is the story of
(01:43):
our times. You know, we open up a newspaper today,
it's on every page of Venezuela, Iran. Russia is essentially
one of the largest suppliers of energy in the world,
and it's been that way for more than one hundred years.
Emanueal Nobel pioneered the Russian oil industry in the south
of the Russian Empire what's modern day Azerbaijan, by the
(02:06):
Caspian Sea and the Caucasu was part of the Russian
Empire at that time. He bought land there in the
eighteen seventies, just after Rockefeller had established standard oil in America,
and he took the American playbook to how you develop
the oil drilling apparatus and the refining infrastructure, and the
pipelines and the railroads, and he implemented the American playbook
(02:28):
in the south of Russia that was the most abundant
petroleum area in the world. And we don't really know
the name of Manual Nobel today. We only know Alfred
who was outside of Russia. But by the Great War,
by nineteen fourteen, Emmanuel Nobel controlled more oil than anyone
in the world. His oil company that he built along
(02:49):
the Caspian Sea was larger than standard oil by World
War One. And then the collision he had with Joseph
Stalin and the Communists around the time of the Russian
Revolution in nineteen seven. Team that coalition and what Stalin
did to Emmanuel Nobel was the inspiration for George Orwell's
nineteen eighty four, that novel that he wrote. I know
you mentioned don't read a lot of novels, but this
(03:10):
one you probably know about it.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh yeah, absolutely, there's.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
A there's a passage in there where they say, renamed
the streets and they tore down the statues and they
rewrote the history. That's that what Orwell was talking about.
There is what Stalin and the Communists did to all
the industrialists in the Russian Empire when the Communists took
over and nationalized all the industry. Nobel was the biggest
industrialist in the Russian Empire at had time. They essentially
(03:33):
nationalized and stole his whole business Empire and renamed it
Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company became the Soviet Petroleum Company. And
the story of Emmanuel Nobel has been lost to the
West until this book.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
We got a short little moment here before we take
a quick break, Douglas, But how did this story fall
into your lap? What what lit the fire for this?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
My prior book was about Rudolph Diesel, who invented a
diesel engine, and he and he disappeared right before World
War One, And when he brought the diesel engine to
the world in eighteen ninety seven, he licensed it by
national territory. And the person who took the license to
the diesel engine for the Russian Empire was an annual Nobel.
So I first stumbled across these Russian Nobels that no
one's ever heard of. We only know Alfred right, you know.
(04:21):
But there was this whole larger industrial concern of the
other side of the Nobel family, and I discovered them
through Rudolph Diesel back with.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Author Douglas Brunt. He's a New York Times bestseller of
the book The Last Empire of Emmanual Nobel. Douglas how
do you resurrect and research a part of history, not
only from Russia, but the Stalin era where they notoriously
made people disappear.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
There are a couple of good ways to go about it.
The first after nineteen ninety one, when the Soviet Union
felt a lot of archives became available to the West
that had great in for me nation on Stalin's for
early years things that were harder to acquire before nineteen
ninety one. He kind of hid some of his early
days because he was basically a gangster. He was born
in the country of Georgia in the south of the
(05:13):
Russian Empire, the caspimc, so he actually grew up right
next to these crazy oil fields of the Nobel's. The
other large oil concern at that time in the south
of Russia was run by Rothschild family, So it's kind
of the Nobels and the Rothschild and Stalins worked in
the Rothschild and Nobel oil fields, and he was also
sort of running protection screen schemes and robbing payroll trucks
(05:34):
and you know all this crazy stuff where he would
take those that money and ship it off to Lenin
to try to help fund the Bolshevik party. So he
was essentially a gangster and has worked to conceal that,
you know, early part of his life. But there was
also a lot of great, you know, real treasures to
research in the Nobel history that made it out of
(05:55):
Azerbaijan and back who modern day as Vajehan that was
been part of the Russian Empire. A lot of information
it's made it out to Stockholm in Sweden, which is
where the Nobel family had originated. The grandfather of Emmanuel
was from Stockholm, and Alfred Nobel had returned to Sweden
as well, so there's a lot of stuff from the
Alfred Nobel side, but also the Russian Nobels in Sweden.
(06:19):
So I spent a lot of time in archives around
Stockholm where they had pulled some of that material out
of Baku, old photos of the oil operations, and they
actually designed the very first oil tanker in the world.
People you know, well that can't be done. But the
Nobel is actually designed steel cisterns inside the hull of
(06:41):
ships that could you know, survive the pounding of the
open ocean. They were the first to do that and
really stunned standard oil because suddenly they're sending enormous quantities
of oil across the oceans to you know, markets around
the world, and so there was tons of information there.
I spent a lot of time in Stockholm sifting through
all that and it was a really fun part of
book together.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
This might be like stupid question, but are there any
living descendants of Emmanuel Nobel?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, he did, he never had kids, but there are
tons of Nobels around the world now that are still
involved with the Nobel Foundation and the awarding of the prize.
But the kids are all from his from his siblings. Okay,
Alfred had no kids and Emmanuel had no kids, but
there were other Nobel brothers who did have lots of kids,
(07:31):
So there are hundreds of novels that can sort of
tie back to the family.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I would imagine writing a book like this. I mean,
there's so much intrigue when you start weaving in the
story of the Soviet Union and the expansion of Stalinism.
But I would imagine it you become almost like a
friend to Emmanuel Nobel as you're researching this What surprised
you the most as you learned about this man.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Well, that's exactly right. You read all the letters and
the journal entries, and you do start to develop a
connection with the person, even though you know he died
nearly one hundred years ago. One thing that surprised me
was how involved he was with the turn of Russia
from the Tsars of the Romanov dynasty into communist Soviet Russia.
(08:24):
And it makes sense when you think about because he
controlled the oil, and oil was key. You know, World
War one was the first mechanized war, the first war
where we had planes and tanks and trucks and ships
running fuel oil instead of poll and so everyone needed
the oil. And when the Russian Revolution happened, Lenin and
(08:45):
Stalin were thinking, we need to nationalize all the oil,
but we need the help of the oil industrialists otherwise,
you know, we don't know how to pump oil and
refine it. We need these guys to help us. So
Emmanuel Nobel is a refugee in this resort town in
southern Russia that's buffered by the White Army that opposes communism.
And he's writing to the British, who are, you know,
(09:06):
just wrapping up World War One. They're sort of figuring
out the peace terms. And he's like, the British currently
hold Backou where all the oil is in southern Russia.
But there's only about a thousand British troops, which is
nowhere near enough to keep the Red Army, Stalin's Red
Army out of there. And so he writes to the
British government and says, Stalin is coming for the oil
in Bakou. You need to reinforce your position. A thousand
(09:27):
troops is not going to get it done. He's writing
this in the spring of nineteen nineteen, and he says,
by August of nineteen nineteen, Stalin will be here to
take the oil. You've got to get more troops. Here
Churchill is saying the same thing. Churchill's arguing that the
British is send in one hundred thousand troops to Russia.
They can nip this entire communist thing in the butt.
It'll never happen with only one hundred thousand troops, which
(09:47):
is not you know, significant but not much compared to
what they just went through in World War One. But
there's no appetite to do it. They just had this
four year brutal war. They don't want to mess around
in Russian politics and you know, establish a new government there.
They don't send its troops. Things play out exactly as
Emmanual Nobel said they would. Stalin does get there, he
does get the oil, The Reds win the Russian Civil War,
(10:09):
and we have a communist government, but became in a breath.
You know, imagine in a twentieth century in which communism
never appears. Wow, Communism didn't exist anywhere on the planet
until Lenin put it into place in Russia in nineteen seventeen.
But imagine if it couldn't happen, there'd be no communists Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam.
None of it would have happened if the British had
(10:31):
listened to Emmanual Nobel and Churchill.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
British still aren't listening to much good wisdom these days.
Hang on, Douglas, We're going to continue our discussion The
Last Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. The author Douglas Burnt with
me and the book available, you can get it at
your favorite bookseller. Besides writing New York Times bestsellers. It's like,
(10:56):
oh and by the way, along with that. Doug so
Us brunt our guest is host of the top rated
Serious exam Author podcast Dedicated with Douglas Brunt. All Right,
tell us a little bit about that real quick.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That's a really fun show, and it's a great sort
of side hustle that I have because you're writing is
a fairly solitary gig. You know, it is some research
and I travel around a bit. I mean, a few
people writing, but mostly I'm in my office. So that
the show dedicated that I do, it's comes out of
the podcast on YouTube and on serious Radio. I interview
(11:33):
great writers. So it's a chance to sort of get
out of my little bunker and meet some writers that
I really admire. And I've had fiction and non fiction,
you know, everything from Lee Child to Ammore Tolls to
Eric Larson and David Grant and others, and so I
have them on the show. We always do it in
person on set, and we start each show with me
(11:56):
fixing the guest's favorite cocktail. So Eric Larson had a
Rye Manhattan, Lee Child of Chantaigne any more tolls was
the Negroni And so I'll fix the drink pack there
on the set and then we'll just have a drink together.
And for the audience, it's like sitting next to us
in a bar as we kind of shoot the breeze
and we talk about the writer's life and work and
(12:16):
interests and some of the recent books. But it's more
of a conversation about how they approached the craft and
how they got started in writing, and it's just a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I want to jump in on that and kind of
tie it back to our topic here, which is your
latest book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel, again available
at all the book outlets, friends that you might use.
Did you get were there moments as you're researching and
or writing where I just kind of imagined that as
(12:49):
I was going through the book and reading it, there
had to be moments where you almost pushed back in
your chair and almost maybe even out loud, went wow,
as you just kind of pulled together this piece of information,
learned that piece of information. Did you have those moments
and what are those like?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
It is It's like it's like the nerdy side of
Indiana Jones. You know, when you discover like a gold
nugget of information and like, this is even crazier than
I had realized when I set out to take on
this story. You know, I knew I had a great story,
and then I had to cover something like, oh my gosh,
it's it's crazier than I knew. Yeah, you know, letters
from Nobel to Balfour describing what's going on with Dalin.
(13:32):
You know, I knew there was a connection with Emmanuel
Nobel and Stalin, but I didn't realize how deeply personal
it was, or his involvement in you know, the Revolution
and the Civil War and the outcomes and the significance
of his oil concern. So, yeah, everyone's wanting you. You
uncover some page out of an archive and you to
someone else you think, oh, well, that's kind of interesting.
(13:54):
But in the context of the story that I'm pulling together,
the connections I can draw from that one piece of
information can be fantastic. And so those are very exciting moments, you.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Know, when I got the advanced reader's version, and for
those of you that might not know, this is what
they push out to the media for us to get
a chance to look at the book in advance. It's
not the final, final, final copy, but it's pretty much
the final copy. I read the prologue, Doug, and I
just was like, oh wait, you can't stop there. It
was like the most incredible written teaser, and it set
(14:27):
the stage for the rest of that book so brilliantly.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Well, what do you want people to take away? Big picture?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Obviously, the nuggets inside the book will speak for themselves.
But if there was something that you kind of hope
that people glean from this, what is it?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Well, I would say that the collision between Emmanuel Nobel
and Joseph Stalin is the greatest sliding doors moment in history. Okay,
the idea that Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky and communism
in Russia was the least likely outcome, and through a
(15:05):
series of totally bizarre events and things sort of breaking
the way of the Communists, they do prevail by Emmanuel
Nobel and his oil in the south of Russia are
at the heart of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
It's a wonderful story and I'm really grateful that you
made the time for us this morning, Douglas, and best
of success on your book and its sales, and the
next time you write, make sure the folks over at
Simon and Schuster look us up.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Absolutely, what a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Thanks so much for having me on my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Thank you, Sir Douglas Brunt with us and again this
interview will be on our Conversations podcast. And the book
is The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. What did you
do when you heard the whole communist movement could have
been snuffed if they'd listen to Churchill? A history altering
(16:02):
moment of inaction by the Brits. I'm gonna be talking
about that for a while this Morning Show with Preston
Scott
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.