Kyle Harrison
to-read

Metal Men

Metal Men: Marc Rich and the 10-Billion-Dollar Scam
Author
A. Craig Copetas
Published
1985
Pages
224
Recommended
Once
Buy on Amazon ↗

Why it’s on the list: Copetas’s account of Marc Rich and the physical commodity-trading business — how metals and oil actually move, and the arbitrage and sanctions-running that built the modern trading houses.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @WillManidis’s question, “what is the single best book you can read that will explain an entire industry?” (June 2, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on what is the single best book… (tweet). It was listed there as “Metal Men”.

Connections

  • Mining — The metals trade the book is about.
  • Globalization — The cross-border trading business Rich built.
  • what is the single best book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.