Most Anticipated by Foreign Policy • Globe and Mail • Next Big Idea Club Must Read April Books • A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

“Will stand as a classic.” – Christopher Leonard
"Riveting, shocking, and full of revelations." - Bryan Burrough

From veteran Amazon reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Everything War is the first untold, devastating exposé of Amazon's endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination, by any means necessary.

In 2017, Lina Khan published a paper that accused Amazon of being a monopoly, having grown so large, and embedded in so many industries, it was akin to a modern-day Standard Oil. Unlike Rockefeller’s empire, however, Bezos’s company had grown voraciously without much scrutiny. In fact, for over twenty years, Amazon had emerged as a Wall Street darling and its “customer obsession” approach made it indelibly attractive to consumers across the globe. But the company was not benevolent; it operated in ways that ensured it stayed on top. Lina Khan’s paper would light a fire in Washington, and in a matter of years, she would become the head of the FTC. In 2023, the FTC filed a monopoly lawsuit against Amazon in what may become one of the largest antitrust cases in the 21st century.

With unparalleled access, and having interviewed hundreds of people – from Amazon executives to competitors to small businesses who rely on its marketplace to survive – Mattioli exposes how Amazon was driven by a competitive edge to dominate every industry it entered, bulldozed all who stood in its way, reshaped the retail landscape, transformed how Wall Street evaluates companies, and altered the very nature of the global economy. It has come to control most of online retail, and uses its own sellers’ data to compete with them through Amazon’s own private label brands. Millions of companies and governmental agencies use AWS, paying hefty fees for the service. And, the company has purposefully avoided collecting taxes for years, exploited partners, and even copied competitors—leveraging its power to extract whatever it can, at any cost. It has continued to gain market share in disparate areas, from media to logistics and beyond. Most companies dominate one or two industries; Amazon now leads in several. And all of this was by design.

The Everything War is the definitive, inside story of how it grew into one of the most powerful and feared companies in the world – and why this lawsuit opens a window into the most consequential business story of our times.


 

"Wall Street Journal reporter Mattioli debuts with a blistering exposé of how Amazon used its 'size, leverage, and access to data across industries to choke competition.' Mattioli’s impressive reporting—which draws on internal documents and hundreds of interviews with employees, senior executives, and government officials—recreates the company’s conquests in disturbing detail....This is investigative journalism at its finest."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An unflinching expose of thuggish strategies employed by Amazon—tactics that not only hobble competitors, exploit paying customers, but also cripple aspiring start-ups that make the mistake of sharing product secrets, only to find Amazon knock-offs sold on the consumer monolith’s website."—Jacquie McNish, co-author of Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry

"Crackerjack reporting drives this exceptional deep dive into Jeff Bezos’s corporate leviathan, drawing on internal documents and hundreds of interviews with Amazon personnel to illuminate the company’s merciless tactics for conquering an ever-growing range of industries. It’s the most comprehensive account yet of Amazon’s quest for retail dominance."—Best Books of 2024, Publishers Weekly

“Riveting, shocking, and full of revelations, The Everything War is the thrilling account of how Amazon redefined corporate power, and did so with a single minded focus on rolling over the competition in its pursuit for dominance. This one could be a classic.”

—Bryan Burrough, co-author of Barbarians at the Gate and Forget the Alamo

"Dana Mattioli’s The Everything War is a masterful expose of a corporate leviathan’s relentless drive for power. Her incisive writing and thorough reporting takes you behind a global juggernaut’s seemingly innocuous facade. You will never look at those little cardboard boxes on your doorstep the same way again."—Zeke Faux, author of Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

"In The Everything War, the journalist Dana Mattioli shows us at length that Bezos’s legacy is far more insidious than we ever suspected....At this point, continuing to defend Amazon’s business practices with the argument of low prices, even when such toxicity extends to a soul-crushing work culture, has turned into a feel-good illusion that corporate America keeps telling itself about the monster it has created. But as with all illusions, at some point, reality hits. This book is exactly the dose of reality Americans need to imagine a world without Amazon, which already costs us so much to feed."

—Karina Montoya, Washington Monthly

“This is the most in-depth investigation ever written about Amazon […] The testimonies and revelations will be used for what will likely be the biggest antitrust trial of the 21st Century.”—Karlin Lillington, Irish Times Review

"There’s an echo here of Ida Tarbell, the journalist whose revelations about Standard Oil’s monopolistic chicanery led to the famous antitrust case over a century ago. As the Wall Street Journal’s Amazon correspondent (a post whose very existence speaks volumes), Mattioli’s reporting came to focus on allegations of the company’s anti-competitive behaviour, and it is the many eye-stretching case studies that are the meat of the book…The Everything War makes a compelling case that no company should be this powerful."—Jonathan Ford, The Financial Times

"A riveting and explosive work of investigative reporting that will stand as a classic. Dana Mattioli has managed to unearth the deepest secrets of the world’s most powerful retailer, bringing it all into the daylight in vivid detail. Every page is revelatory and the characters—from the domineering billionaire CEO, to the brilliant 30-something trustbuster in Washington who pursues him—seem like they’ve walked straight out of a novel. This is the business story of our time."—Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money