“The implied narrative of this collection is the journalist’s background, the imperial myths that helped to shape him, the impulse to exile and his encounter with the Reagan era. The background, the myths and the impulse to exile form the first three sections of this book, whose overall architecture will, I hope, give some sense of the terms in which I have viewed my trade.”—Alexander Cockburn, from the introduction
Corruption is one of the biggest global issues, ahead of extreme poverty, unemployment, the rising cost of food and energy, climate change, and terrorism. It is thought to be one of the principal causes of poverty around the globe. Its significance in the contemporary world cannot be undervalued. In this Very Short Introduction Leslie Holmes considers why the international community has only highlighted corruption as a problem in the past two decades, despite its presence throughout the millennia. Holmes explores the phenomenon from several different perspectives, from the cultural differences affecting how corruption is defined, its impact, and its various causes to the possible remedies. Providing evidence of corruption and considering ways to address it around the world, this is an important introduction to a significant and serious global issue. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
This is a history, a diary, a dossier of a radical's working life and circumstances among some of the most momentous years of the century. Its pages echo with the crash of rubble, of the old regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, of the illusions of the post-Cold War West, of physical landscapes in upheaval. Cockburn's own reflections, both personal and political, are interspersed with letters from Claud Cockburn, Graham Greene, friends and irate readers. There are discussions with Noam Chomsky, dippings into criticism, Colette, transvestism, sexual manners, hate mail.
National Bestseller "A powerful and important picture of how mega law firms distort justice."—David Cay Johnston, Washington Post The NYT's Business Investigations Editor reveals the dark side of American law: Delivering a "devastating" (Carol Leonnig) exposé of the astonishing yet shadowy power wielded by the world’s largest law firms, David Enrich traces how one firm shielded opioid makers, gun companies, big tobacco, Russian oligarchs, Fox News, the Catholic Church, and much of the Fortune 500; helped Donald Trump get elected, govern, and evade investigation; masterminded the conservative remaking of the courts . . . and make a killing along the way. In his acclaimed #1 bestseller Dark Towers, David Enrich presented the never-before-told saga of how Deutsche Bank became the global face of financial recklessness and criminality. Now Enrich turns his eye towards the world of “Big Law” and the nearly unchecked influence these firms wield to shield the wealthy and powerful—and bury their secrets. To tell this story, Enrich focuses on Jones Day, one of the world’s largest law firms. Jones Day’s narrative arc—founded in Cleveland in 1893, it became the first law firm to expand nationally and is now a global juggernaut with deep ties to corporate interests and conservative politics—is a powerful encapsulation of the changes that have swept the legal industry in recent decades. Since 2016, Jones Day has been in the spotlight for representing Donald Trump and his campaigns (and now his PACs)—and for the fleet of Jones Day attorneys who joined his administration, including White House Counsel Don McGahn. Jones Day helped Trump fend off the Mueller investigation and challenged Obamacare. Its once and future lawyers defended Trump’s Muslim ban and border policies and handled his judicial nominations. Jones Day even laid some of the legal groundwork for Trump to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election. But the Trump work is but one chapter in the firm’s checkered history. Jones Day, like many of its peers, have become highly effective enablers of the business world’s worst misbehavior. The firm has for decades represented Big Tobacco in its fight to avoid liability for its products. Jones Day worked tirelessly for the Catholic Church as it tried to minimize its sexual-abuse scandals. And for Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, as it sought to protect its right to make and market its dangerously addictive drug. And for Fox News as it waged war against employees who were the victims of sexual harassment and retaliation. And for Russian oligarchs as their companies sought to expand internationally. In this gripping and revealing new work of narrative nonfiction, Enrich makes the compelling central argument that law firms like Jones Day play a crucial yet largely hidden role in enabling and protecting powerful bad actors in our society, housing their darkest secrets, and earning billions in revenue for themselves.
Many have told of the East India Company’s extraordinary excesses in eighteenth-century India, of the plunder that made its directors fabulously wealthy and able to buy British land and titles, but this is only a fraction of the story. When one of these men—Warren Hastings—was put on trial by Edmund Burke, it brought the Company’s exploits to the attention of the public. Through the trial and after, the British government transformed public understanding of the Company’s corrupt actions by creating an image of a vulnerable India that needed British assistance. Intrusive behavior was recast as a civilizing mission. In this fascinating, and devastating, account of the scandal that laid the foundation of the British Empire, Nicholas Dirks explains how this substitution of imperial authority for Company rule helped erase the dirty origins of empire and justify the British presence in India. The Scandal of Empire reveals that the conquests and exploitations of the East India Company were critical to England’s development in the eighteenth century and beyond. We see how mercantile trade was inextricably linked with imperial venture and scandalous excess and how these three things provided the ideological basis for far-flung British expansion. In this powerfully written and trenchant critique, Dirks shows how the empire projected its own scandalous behavior onto India itself. By returning to the moment when the scandal of empire became acceptable we gain a new understanding of the modern culture of the colonizer and the colonized and the manifold implications for Britain, India, and the world.
Transparency in Global Change examines the quest for information exchange in an increasingly international, open society. Recent transformations in governments and cultures have brought about a surge in the pursuit of knowledge in areas of law, trade, professions, investment, education, and medical practice—among others. Technological advancements in communications, led by the United States, and public access to information fuel the phenomenon of transparency. This rise in transparency parallels a diminution of secrecy—though, as Burkart and Leslie Holzner point out, secrecy continues to exist on many levels. Based on current events and historical references in literature and the social sciences, Transparency in Global Change focuses on the turning points of information cultures, such as scandals, that lead to pressure for transparency. Moreover, the Holzners illuminate byproducts of transparency—debate, insight, and impetus for change, as transparency exposes the moral corruptions of dictatorship, empire, and inequity.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Washington insiders operate by a proven credo: When a Peter Schweizer book drops, duck and brace for impact. For over a decade, the work of six-time New York Times bestselling investigative reporter Peter Schweizer has sent shockwaves through the political universe. Clinton Cash revealed the Clintons’ international money flow, exposed global corruption, and sparked an FBI investigation. Secret Empires exposed bipartisan corruption and launched congressional investigations. And Throw Them All Out and Extortion prompted passage of the STOCK Act. Indeed, Schweizer’s “follow the money” bombshell revelations have been featured on the front pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and regularly appear on national news programs, including 60 Minutes. Now Schweizer and his team of seasoned investigators turn their focus to the nation’s top progressives—politicians who strive to acquire more government power to achieve their political ends. Can they be trusted with more power? In Profiles in Corruption, Schweizer offers a deep-dive investigation into the private finances, and secrets deals of some of America’s top political leaders. And, as usual, he doesn’t disappoint, with never-before-reported revelations that uncover corruption and abuse of power—all backed up by a mountain of corporate documents and legal filings from around the globe. Learn about how they are making sweetheart deals, generating side income, bending the law to their own benefits, using legislation to advance their own interests, and much more. Profiles in Corruption contains tomorrow’s headlines.
Answering the calls made to overcome methodological nationalism, this volume is the first examination of the links between corruption and imperial rule in the modern world. It does so through a set of original studies that examine the multi-layered nature of corruption in four different empires (Great Britain, Spain, the Netherlands and France) and their possessions in Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa. It offers a key read for scholars interested in the fields of corruption, colonialism/empire and global history. The chapters ‘Introduction: Corruption, Empire and Colonialism in the Modern Era: Towards a Global Perspective’, ‘“Corrupt and rapacious”: Colonial Spanish-American past through the eyes of early nineteenth century contemporaries. A contribution from the history of emotions’, and ‘Colonial Normativity? Corruption in the Dutch-Indonesian Relationship in the Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries’ are Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.
A New York Times bestseller The Great Deformation is a searing look at Washington's craven response to the recent myriad of financial crises and fiscal cliffs. It counters conventional wisdom with an eighty-year revisionist history of how the American state -- especially the Federal Reserve -- has fallen prey to the politics of crony capitalism and the ideologies of fiscal stimulus, monetary central planning, and financial bailouts. These forces have left the public sector teetering on the edge of political dysfunction and fiscal collapse and have caused America's private enterprise foundation to morph into a speculative casino that swindles the masses and enriches the few. Defying right- and left-wing boxes, David Stockman provides a catalogue of corrupters and defenders of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and free markets. The former includes Franklin Roosevelt, who fathered crony capitalism; Richard Nixon, who destroyed national financial discipline and the Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar; Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke, who fostered our present scourge of bubble finance and addiction to debt and speculation; George W. Bush, who repudiated fiscal rectitude and ballooned the warfare state via senseless wars; and Barack Obama, who revived failed Keynesian "borrow and spend" policies that have driven the national debt to perilous heights. By contrast, the book also traces a parade of statesmen who championed balanced budgets and financial market discipline including Carter Glass, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Simon, Paul Volcker, Bill Clinton, and Sheila Bair. Stockman's analysis skewers Keynesian spenders and GOP tax-cutters alike, showing how they converged to bloat the welfare state, perpetuate the military-industrial complex, and deplete the revenue base -- even as the Fed's massive money printing allowed politicians to enjoy "deficits without tears." But these policies have also fueled new financial bubbles and favored Wall Street with cheap money and rigged stock and bond markets, while crushing Main Street savers and punishing family budgets with soaring food and energy costs. The Great Deformation explains how we got here and why these warped, crony capitalist policies are an epochal threat to free market prosperity and American political democracy.
