
Foreign Agents
How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $20.24
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Joe Dwyer
-
By:
-
Casey Michel
About this listen
A stunning investigation and indictment of a segment of the United States' foreign lobbying industry, and the threat to end democracy.
For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.
These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These foreign lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry—a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it—and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.
In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists as some of them—after decades of installing dictators and corrupting American policy—embark on their next mission: to end America’s democratic experiment, once and for all.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
©2024 Casey Michel (P)2024 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
American Kleptocracy
- How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History
- By: Casey Michel
- Narrated by: Joe Dwyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known.
-
-
Brilliant, timely, a cautionary tale
- By Victoria Eriksson on 11-24-21
By: Casey Michel
-
The Illegals
- Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.”
-
-
Great history of “nelegali”!
- By Amzon Customer on 06-07-25
By: Shaun Walker
-
The Haves and Have-Yachts
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ultrarich hold more of America’s wealth than they did in the heyday of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. Here, Evan Osnos’s incisive reportage yields an unforgettable portrait of the tactics and obsessions driving this new Gilded Age, in which superyachts, luxury bunkers, elite tax dodges, and a torrent of political donations bespeak staggering disparities of wealth and power. With deft storytelling and meticulous reporting, this is a book about the indulgences, incentives, and psychological distortions that define our economic age.
-
-
I hated for the book to end!!
- By Anonymous User on 06-18-25
By: Evan Osnos
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
Iran's Grand Strategy
- A Political History
- By: Vali Nasr
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country's goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran's political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today's Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world.
By: Vali Nasr
-
Where Tyranny Begins
- The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy
- By: David Rohde
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Where Tyranny Begins, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Rohde investigates the strategies Trump systematically used to turn the country's two most powerful law-enforcement agencies into his personal political weapons. Rohde also reveals how, during the Biden years, Justice Department non-partisan 1970s norms that Attorney General Merrick Garland reinforced inadvertently helped Trump, and could fail to deliver a trial and legal accountability by Election Day 2024.
-
-
Review of why we fired trump
- By ludlow on 09-24-24
By: David Rohde
-
American Kleptocracy
- How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History
- By: Casey Michel
- Narrated by: Joe Dwyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known.
-
-
Brilliant, timely, a cautionary tale
- By Victoria Eriksson on 11-24-21
By: Casey Michel
-
The Illegals
- Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.”
-
-
Great history of “nelegali”!
- By Amzon Customer on 06-07-25
By: Shaun Walker
-
The Haves and Have-Yachts
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ultrarich hold more of America’s wealth than they did in the heyday of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. Here, Evan Osnos’s incisive reportage yields an unforgettable portrait of the tactics and obsessions driving this new Gilded Age, in which superyachts, luxury bunkers, elite tax dodges, and a torrent of political donations bespeak staggering disparities of wealth and power. With deft storytelling and meticulous reporting, this is a book about the indulgences, incentives, and psychological distortions that define our economic age.
-
-
I hated for the book to end!!
- By Anonymous User on 06-18-25
By: Evan Osnos
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
Iran's Grand Strategy
- A Political History
- By: Vali Nasr
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country's goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran's political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today's Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world.
By: Vali Nasr
-
Where Tyranny Begins
- The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy
- By: David Rohde
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Where Tyranny Begins, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Rohde investigates the strategies Trump systematically used to turn the country's two most powerful law-enforcement agencies into his personal political weapons. Rohde also reveals how, during the Biden years, Justice Department non-partisan 1970s norms that Attorney General Merrick Garland reinforced inadvertently helped Trump, and could fail to deliver a trial and legal accountability by Election Day 2024.
-
-
Review of why we fired trump
- By ludlow on 09-24-24
By: David Rohde
-
Offshore
- Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism
- By: Brooke Harrington
- Narrated by: Jennifer Walden
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do the rich keep getting richer, while dodging the long arm of the law? The ultra-rich seem to live in a different world from the rest of us. That world is called offshore. Hidden from view, the world's ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way.
-
-
Informative
- By Seattle mom on 03-02-25
-
Spies and Lies
- How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World
- By: Alex Joske
- Narrated by: James Daniel Burkdoll
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spies and Lies a groundbreaking expose of elite influence operations by China's little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China's past, present, and future.
-
-
Beware of the MSS
- By Reed Ramlow on 03-08-24
By: Alex Joske
-
The Death of Expertise (2nd Edition)
- The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters
- By: Tom Nichols
- Narrated by: Tom Nichols
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fully updated chapters continue to address how technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Over the past several years, the rise of populism and conspiracy theories have taken this to new levels. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.
-
-
Good Book, but Longer than Needed
- By Chuck on 06-14-25
By: Tom Nichols
-
Vulture Capitalism
- Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom
- By: Grace Blakeley
- Narrated by: Grace Blakeley
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s easy to look at the state of the world around us and feel hopeless. We live in an era marked by war, climate crisis, political polarization, and acute inequality—and yet many of us feel powerless to do anything about these profound issues. We’ve been assured that unfettered capitalism is necessary to ensure our freedom and prosperity but why, in our age of unchecked corporate power, are most of us living paycheck to paycheck? When the economy falters, why do governments bail out corporations and shareholders but leave everyday people in the dust?
-
-
Excellent background knowledge
- By Herbert Ferguson on 04-17-25
By: Grace Blakeley
-
Meltdown
- Greed, Scandal, and the Collapse of Credit Suisse
- By: Duncan Mavin
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Credit Suisse was a 166-year-old bastion of global banking. But a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, much dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, Credit Suisse banked dictators and drug dealers, hid stolen Nazi gold, and helped corrupt bankers fleece the firm's own clients of billions of dollars. Its top executives oversaw a global operation that laundered money for autocrats; they hired spies to track one another through the cobbled streets of the Swiss financial capital; and they helped clients hide their money from the world's tax authorities.
By: Duncan Mavin
-
Punishing Putin
- Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia
- By: Stephanie Baker
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From seizing superyachts to manipulating the global price of oil to trying to block the sale of military technology to Russia, we learn how the White House coordinated with top officials in London and Brussels to freeze a staggering $300 billion in foreign currency reserves accumulated in the West by Russia’s central bank. Mobilizing an army of white collar-crime investigators and experts on international law, Baker explores how the West has cracked down on illicit Russian money by targeting oligarchs, one superyacht at a time, and their enablers around the world.
-
-
Interesting in-depth storytelling
- By EBM on 10-01-24
By: Stephanie Baker
-
Chokepoints
- American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare
- By: Edward Fishman
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It used to be that ravaging another country’s economy required blockading its ports and laying siege to its cities. Now all it takes is a statement posted online by the U.S. government. In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top State Department sanctions official, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the untold history of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which America renounced the gospel of globalization and waged a new kind of economic war.
-
-
Impressive
- By Harry Helbock on 06-17-25
By: Edward Fishman
-
Stench
- The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America
- By: David Brock
- Narrated by: David Brock, Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Armed with an insider’s perspective from his time within the conservative movement, David Brock reveals how the efforts to stack the Supreme Court in service of extreme right-wing interests stem from a decades-long strategy to weaponize our judicial system into an extension of the Republican Party itself.
-
-
Corruption and The Thomas Court
- By Izzy on 02-18-25
By: David Brock
-
Tower of Basel
- The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank That Runs the World
- By: Adam LeBor
- Narrated by: John Mawson
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers—including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve; Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; and former senior Bank for International Settlements managers and officials—Tower of Basel tells the inside story of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS): the central bankers' own bank.
-
-
Good listen
- By Fan on 05-18-25
By: Adam LeBor
-
Fools on the Hill
- The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House
- By: Dana Milbank
- Narrated by: Dana Milbank
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From inside the chamber, bestselling author Dana Milbank exposes the petty, inchoate, and dysfunctional state of the Republican House—a confederacy of dunces racing to the bottom, without shame and certainly without the ability to get anything done.
-
-
If you weren't paying attention
- By Jesse Porter on 10-01-24
By: Dana Milbank
-
All or Nothing
- How Trump Recaptured America
- By: Michael Wolff
- Narrated by: Michael Wolff, Holter Graham
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fire and Fury delivers a breathtaking insider account of the 2024 Trump campaign—undoubtedly the wildest, most unpredictable campaign in U.S. history, including multiple criminal trials, two assassination attempts, and a sudden switch of opponents.
-
-
Trump is a D**k
- By valerie on 03-02-25
By: Michael Wolff
-
Vertigo
- The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany
- By: Harald Jähner
- Narrated by: Sam Peter Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launched an unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The Weimar Republic, named for the city where it was established, endured for only fifteen years before it was toppled by the insurgent Nazi Party in 1933. In Vertigo, prizewinning historian Harald Jähner tells the Republic’s full story, capturing a nation caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty and struggling toward a better future.
-
-
How. Did It Happen?
- By Bettyb on 10-19-24
By: Harald Jähner
Critic reviews
Foreign Policy, Most Anticipated Books of 2024
"[A] masterful exposé.... Michel’s portrait of endemic corruption is disturbing; lobbying firms, he finds, do little more than serve as conduits for channeling foreign bribes to American officials. The result is a hard-hitting takedown of a cynical industry."—Publishers Weekly (starred)
"A timely exposé of American lobbyists who degrade democracy and weaken human rights. In the spirit of Progressive Era muckrakers, Michel reveals the shamelessness, venality, and moral turpitude of those who work to influence federal legislators and the public in order to advance antidemocratic foreign interests... A provocative and alarming account of the political cesspool known as foreign lobbying."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"For years, foreign lobbyists have acted as key henchmen for dictators around the world, enriching and entrenching those regimes that much further. Now, Casey Michel shines much-needed light on these foreign lobbyists—and these enablers who are making it easier for despots around the world to expand their reach. Full of sordid tales and striking details, Foreign Agents shows how these foreign lobbyists are, in many ways, just as reprehensible as the dictators they represent—and maybe even more so."—Sir Bill Browder, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Notice and Freezing Order
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
American Kleptocracy
- How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History
- By: Casey Michel
- Narrated by: Joe Dwyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known.
-
-
Brilliant, timely, a cautionary tale
- By Victoria Eriksson on 11-24-21
By: Casey Michel
-
Offshore
- Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism
- By: Brooke Harrington
- Narrated by: Jennifer Walden
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do the rich keep getting richer, while dodging the long arm of the law? The ultra-rich seem to live in a different world from the rest of us. That world is called offshore. Hidden from view, the world's ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way.
-
-
Informative
- By Seattle mom on 03-02-25
-
Kleptopia
- How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World
- By: Tom Burgis
- Narrated by: Tom Burgis
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption. Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.
-
-
Lazy Journalism in long narrative form
- By Jeremy on 02-14-21
By: Tom Burgis
-
The Panama Papers
- How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money
- By: Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Late one evening investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500 million in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.
-
-
highly recommended for the ears of the 99% and 1%
- By Craig S Smith on 12-06-18
By: Frederik Obermaier, and others
-
Butler to the World
- The Book the Oligarchs Don't Want You to Read - How Britain Helps the World's Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away with Anything
- By: Oliver Bullough
- Narrated by: Oliver Bullough
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Suez Crisis of 1956 was the nadir of Britain's twentieth century, the moment when the once-superpower was bullied into retreat. "Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role," said Dean Acherson, a former US secretary of state. Acheson's line has entered into the canon of great quotations: but it was wrong. Britain had already found a role. The leaders of the world just hadn't noticed it yet. Butler to the World reveals how Britain came to assume its role as the center of the offshore economy.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Brad on 12-30-22
By: Oliver Bullough
-
The Hidden Globe
- How Wealth Hacks the World
- By: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
- Narrated by: Patrick Harrison
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of this hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed their only commodity.
-
-
why a male narrator?
- By catriona on 12-27-24
-
American Kleptocracy
- How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History
- By: Casey Michel
- Narrated by: Joe Dwyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known.
-
-
Brilliant, timely, a cautionary tale
- By Victoria Eriksson on 11-24-21
By: Casey Michel
-
Offshore
- Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism
- By: Brooke Harrington
- Narrated by: Jennifer Walden
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do the rich keep getting richer, while dodging the long arm of the law? The ultra-rich seem to live in a different world from the rest of us. That world is called offshore. Hidden from view, the world's ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way.
-
-
Informative
- By Seattle mom on 03-02-25
-
Kleptopia
- How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World
- By: Tom Burgis
- Narrated by: Tom Burgis
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption. Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.
-
-
Lazy Journalism in long narrative form
- By Jeremy on 02-14-21
By: Tom Burgis
-
The Panama Papers
- How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money
- By: Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Late one evening investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500 million in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.
-
-
highly recommended for the ears of the 99% and 1%
- By Craig S Smith on 12-06-18
By: Frederik Obermaier, and others
-
Butler to the World
- The Book the Oligarchs Don't Want You to Read - How Britain Helps the World's Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away with Anything
- By: Oliver Bullough
- Narrated by: Oliver Bullough
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Suez Crisis of 1956 was the nadir of Britain's twentieth century, the moment when the once-superpower was bullied into retreat. "Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role," said Dean Acherson, a former US secretary of state. Acheson's line has entered into the canon of great quotations: but it was wrong. Britain had already found a role. The leaders of the world just hadn't noticed it yet. Butler to the World reveals how Britain came to assume its role as the center of the offshore economy.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Brad on 12-30-22
By: Oliver Bullough
-
The Hidden Globe
- How Wealth Hacks the World
- By: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
- Narrated by: Patrick Harrison
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of this hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed their only commodity.
-
-
why a male narrator?
- By catriona on 12-27-24
Should be read by everyone
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An important book for our democracy!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you think this topic is interesting/want to learn more, this book is worth a read!
Great book, excellent narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.