Book Description
John Perkins' controversial and bestselling exposé, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, revealed for the first time the secret world of economic hit men (EHMs). But Perkins' Confessions contained only a small piece of this sinister puzzle. The full story is far bigger, deeper, and darker than Perkins' personal account revealed. Here other EHMs, journalists, and investigators join Perkins to tell their own stories, providing the first probing and expansive look into this pervasive web of systematic corruption.With chapters spotlighting how specific countries around the globe have been subverted, A Game As Old As Empire uncovers the inner workings of the institutions behind these economic manipulations. The contributors detail concrete examples of how the “economic hit man game” is still being played: an officer of an offshore bank hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen money, IMF advisers slashing Ghana's education and health programs, a mercenary defending a European oil company in Nigeria, a consultant rewriting Iraqi oil law, and executives financing warlords to secure supplies of coltan ore in Congo. Together they show how this system of corruption and plunder operates in real life, and reveal the price that the rest of the world must pay as a result.
Most important, A Game As Old As Empire connects the dots, showing how the various pieces of this system come together to create the world's first truly global empire.
Table of Contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Introduction: New Confessions and Revelations from the World of Economic Hit Men
- 1 Global Empire: The Web of Control
- 2 Selling Money—and Dependency: Setting the Debt Trap
- 3 Dirty Money: Inside the Secret World of Offshore Banking
- 4 BCCI’s Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad
- 5 The Human Cost of Cheap Cell Phones
- 6 Mercenaries on the Front Lines in the New Scramble for Africa
- 7 Hijacking Iraq’s Oil Reserves: Economic Hit Men at Work
- 8 The World Bank and the $100 Billion Question
- 9 The Philippines, the World Bank, and the Race to the Bottom
- 10 Exporting Destruction
- 11 The Mirage of Debt Relief
- 12 Global Uprising: The Web of Resistance
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgments
- Appendix
- Index