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Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: The Shocking Story of How America Really Took Over the World | 
 enlarge | Author: John Perkins
Publisher: Ebury Press
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.22
You Save: £4.77 (60%)
New (28) Used (10) from £3.22
Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 2634
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0091909104
EAN: 9780091909109
ASIN: 0091909104
Publication Date: February 2, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Fact or fiction, the message deserves serious attention April 14, 2006
Tim Burness (Brighton, England)
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
Brilliant, in an odd kind of way! The paradox of this book is that it often reads like an unbelievable and corny spy thriller, while simultaneously dealing with probably the most real and important issues facing humanity and the planet today. I am sure the author is well aware of this - a more academic, or more "credible" account would have reached far fewer people. Regardless of how much artistic license John Perkins may have used, the essence of this book has a sobering ring of truth about it.
Perkins takes us through his autobiographical account of life as an economic hit-man or EHM. "We are an elite group of men and women who utilize financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks." From 1971 to 1980, this found him working in developing countries (eg. Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Panama), subtley and not-so-subtley building the global American Empire. The real-life politics is interesting.
Perkins eventually quit his job, finally finding the greed and hypocrisy too difficult to deal with. This was partly a result of getting to know the natives of each country he worked in and his social life makes entertaining reading. Although he left the EHM job in 1980, it took the events of September 11th 2001 to finally inspire him to come completely clean and publish this book.
The epilogue is a nice little wake-up call in itself.
Americans do Not Know that We Have Taken Over the World March 9, 2006
May East (valentinesdaylovepoems.com)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
The American religious right has sent its best wordsmiths in to challenge the veracity of this author. Perhaps, the religious right conservatives opine, Perkins is suffering from delusions of grandeur and believes that his position was much more important than it actually was. Surely, one writer of at the Washington post cogitates, the corporations could not be so bad because: (1) several measures of poverty have gone down (and if these corporations were truly evil they would have conspire for these rates to go up). Puhlease! The corporations that Perkins describes are colluding for their own material enrichment and for American imperialism. It is not their goal to gratuitously kill members of the world population. (2) Third world countries can play competing corporations off against each other, thus these corporations cannot be omnipotent.
One can only hope that we in America--without a full and independent press (our press, as alluded to in this book, is part of a huge international conglomeracy) or an educated electorate, will be able to comprehend and act upon the truths elaborated upon in this book.If you read this book, you will understand why we often act as if we don't know anything.
Corporaticracy March 13, 2006
Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium)
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
While reading this book, one cannot get rid of a 'crocodile tears' impression.
The author deplores what he is doing, but continues to be led by his wallet and 'didn't change jobs'. The reason why he didn't, seems also unbelievable: ' I missed the true significance of my action'. (p. 179)
Moreover, his role in the corporatocracy seems highly inflated, for he gives not many details about the concocted deals.
At the end of the book, the author serves a list of practical hints, but that sounds very much like the adage 'Do as I say, not as I do'.So, why should one read this book? Because it explains the core of a pernicious system, which D. Perkins calls 'the self-destructive march to global empire' by the US. He depicts his country as a hegemon ruled by an extremely wealthy and greedy oligarchy, whose behavior has nationally and internationally harmful consequences. Nationally, 12 million families worry about their next meal. History's most powerful and wealthiest empire has outrageously high rates of suicide, drug abuse, divorce, child molestation, rape and murder. Internationally, financial organizations (World Bank ...) are used through Economic Hit Men to make other nations subservient by loans for all kind of works to be executed by US engineering and construction firms. The larger the loan, the better, for those countries become easy targets when the US needs favors (military bases, UN votes, access to oil and other resources).
If the ruler of those countries doesn't cooperate, jackals (intelligence services) are sent in and if even those fail, a military intervention becomes unavoidable.
The author gives some examples: the most probable assassinatons of the presidents of Ecuador and Panama, and the military interventions in Panama and Iraq.
For the author, the corporatocracy constitutes the most blatant grab in history for the hearts, the souls, the minds and the resources of the people all over the world. One example: for less than half the amount spent for he Iraq war, one could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services and basic education to every person on this planet. But ultimately, why is this onslaught still progressing?
Like David Chandler in his terrifying book on Pol Pot's S21 death camp, David Perkins observes: 'We made it happen.' The corporatocracy is in ourselves.
The great evolutionist G.C. Williams said: 'natural selection, albeit stupid, is a story of arms races, slaughter and suffering. We should at least think about it.'
David Perkins thought about it after his uncomprehended actions. A very revealing book.
Brilliant May 30, 2006
Mr. S. Montgomery
6 out of 11 found this review helpful
Loved this book, really sheds a lot of light on the emergence of america's empire and its nature of corporate government decay. It also gives an honest insight into the author's own personality and how he came to realise the truth of his own life and how he had to change it..
There are not many books as good as this...
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