A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption

From the publisher:
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.

“If my Confessions could send such a strong message to the public, it made sense that multiple confessions—or the stories about people who need to confess—might reach even more people …The intrepid contributors to this book uncover events that have taken place across a wide range of countries, all EHM game plans under a variety of guises. Each sheds more light on the building of an empire that is contrary to American principles of democracy and equality.”
—from the introduction by John Perkins
Sections:
* Global Empire: The Web of Control by Steven Hiatt
* Selling Money-and Dependency: Setting the Debt Trap by S.C. Gwynne
* Dirty Money: Inside the Secret World of Offshore Banking by John Christensen
* BCCI's Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad by Lucy Komisar
* The Human Cost of Cheap Cell Phones by Kathleen Kern
* Mercenaries on the Front Lines in the New Scramble for Africa by Andrew Rowell and James Marriott
* Hijacking Iraq's Oil Reserves: Economic Hit Men at Work by Greg Muttitt
* The World Bank and the $100 Billion Question by Steve Berkman
* The Philippines, the World Bank and the Race to the Bottom by Ellen Augustine
* Exporting Destruction by Bruce Rich
* The Mirage of Debt Relief by James S. Henry
* Global Uprising: The Web of Resistance by Antonia Juhasz