Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Author: John Perkins | Language: English | ISBN:
B001AFF266 | Format: PDF
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Description
Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.
- File Size: 1210 KB
- Print Length: 250 pages
- Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers (November 9, 2004)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001AFF266
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,589 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Trades & Tariffs - #3
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in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Globalization
- #2
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Trades & Tariffs - #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Media Studies - #6
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Globalization
It is often the personal stories that tell the bigger truths. As with Barbara Ehrenreich's intensely personal Nickel and Dimed, Perkins' story illuminates a larger picture in a way that more scholarly treatises cannot match. I value the perspective I get from Noam Chomsky and Chalmers Johnson and many others who have written about our modern empire. None of these works, though, explains it from the ground up. Perkins does that.
In this book, written in spurts since the early 1980s, Perkins really does tell it like it is. This is the book I have been waiting for, the book that fills in the blanks left behind by the writers of global theories, the book that tells us how it really happens. It is one thing to read that the United States engineered ousters of democratically-elected leaders who did not do the bidding of our corporations. It is another to read of the actual steps that led to these actions. As one who likes to be able to visualize all the steps, I found great comfort in reading a well-written personal story that allows me to do this.
In this rightly-named confession, Perkins puts on his hair shirt and chastises himself as he explains how he gave in to temptation again and again over several decades, while he worked to build an American corporation's profits at the expense of third-world countries. He does not describe in detail the benefits he accrued from being Satan's handyman. We do not hear stories of his exploits with women, of his flaunting his power, the meat of a LifeTime movie. These fruits of his labor are glossed over in favor of greater descriptions of the occasional pangs of conscience.
Take it as a given, then, that Perkins was right for the job of economic hit man because he was so easily tempted by material wealth, power, and adulation.
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