gorillahands's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this book. Easy to read and extremely interested. I finished it in two days.
It allowed me to see connections in things that I knew but never put together. I was astounded how I was affected by this book, intellectually and emotionally (not usually an emotional guy). I would recommend everyone and anyone to read this book.
It allowed me to see connections in things that I knew but never put together. I was astounded how I was affected by this book, intellectually and emotionally (not usually an emotional guy). I would recommend everyone and anyone to read this book.
anvayonline's review against another edition
3.0
The key message is good but the story gets boring. I get the point that the powerful nation the author belongs to uses soft power and people like him to further their agenda but the book could have been shorter.
chintogtokh's review against another edition
5.0
Quite a lot of people have dismissed this book as being nothing more than conspiracy bullshit. Back in 2006, the author of the State Department release states that the NSA "is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization" and that its missions do not involve "anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries"". Considering the Snowden leaks show that the NSA has far greater power than was assumed by the public, and the fact that all the facts espoused in the book are ridiculously plausible, my opinion is that this book is mostly true, and should be read by more people.
jefecarpenter's review against another edition
5.0
Required reading for an understanding of the perils of imperial globalization.
djmurm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I found this book fascinating, infuriating, and helpful when it focused on digging into US imperialism and misrepresentation of its actions abroad -- it led me to do a lot of additional research on my own. Perkins does a great job of connecting dots and providing context for the countries he writes about and he excels in making very complicated histories accessible to a broad audience. I also appreciated how passionately he makes his case, but similarly to Evicted (which I read around the same time as this), both authors chose to include plenty of nostalgia for so-called American values that fails to resonate with or move me emotionally at this point in my life/political journey. While Perkins is quite critical of capitalism, I can't tell what he thinks we should have instead as he also traffics in uncritical (IMO) anti-communism and never advocates for any other economic/social system. I guess he sort of advocates for a more "ethical" capitalism? (I.e. "vote with your dollars")...which, while I get and sort of subscribe to for integrity purposes, still seems like it is missing the point. I appreciate that he is trying to provide some practical next steps for the reader after a scathing indictment of the US capitalist/imperialist system, so I'll give him that. But then I soured again when he threw in some "rah rah" militarism/patriotism at the end of the book about how I should be grateful for the soldiers who died for my freedom...and compared himself to Paul Revere...calm down, John.
It's also hard to get beyond Perkin's white male drama king antics -- I grew tired of hearing his handwringing about feeling guilty about his choices, yet continuing to actively perpetuate American imperialism. He did this for many, many years of his very adult life! And he is rightfully critical of himself, but as a reader, it became repetitive. He also claimed to know that he has a problem regarding his views of women and yet still wrote the book in a way that felt subtly icky/sexist to me at multiple points.
Basically, I wish this book had been written by a different person!! Or someone who centered themself less!
It's also hard to get beyond Perkin's white male drama king antics -- I grew tired of hearing his handwringing about feeling guilty about his choices, yet continuing to actively perpetuate American imperialism. He did this for many, many years of his very adult life! And he is rightfully critical of himself, but as a reader, it became repetitive. He also claimed to know that he has a problem regarding his views of women and yet still wrote the book in a way that felt subtly icky/sexist to me at multiple points.
Basically, I wish this book had been written by a different person!! Or someone who centered themself less!
laughellacci's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent book for understanding the economic underpinnings of the global geo-political landscape.
hikemogan's review against another edition
3.0
John Perkins spent a good deal of his opening chapter describing how dark forces colluded to keep this book from ever seeing the light of day. Surely, a reader must think, there are some devastating details on the contractor/industrial complex in here that stirred the evil Bechtels and Haliburtons of the world to try to stop Perkins. Yet, after reading the rest of the book I realized that there is nothing new in here that a casual reader of say, Noam Chomsky, or the New York Times, wouldn't know. Is it really news that organizations like the IMF, World Bank, WTO, or any of the various "consulting firms" operating in poor foreign countries in the last 50 years have been manipulating and deceiving in order to serve their Western founders? Worst of all, there are few pieces of the book that give actual specifics about how this manipulation and deceit happened, but rather most of the narrative amounts to "Bad things happened somewhere, I was involved and felt bad about it. But once I made a million dollars, I made sure to stop and write this book."
As far as Perkins' writing style, it's obvious that he had a healthy serving of mystery novels and spy films prior to putting pen to paper. From the mysterious figure of "Claudine" to his absolutely pointless details about his exotic love affairs to clandestine meetings with nameless fallen power brokers in Persian tents, sometimes I had to laugh out loud at how contrived and self-serving Perkins' writing was. It's almost as if his sole desire was to leave some naïve reader thinking, "John Perkins certainly is a good man, and a James Bond-ish rake if I may say."
If you'd really like to know about the issues addressed in this book, get a book about Allende, or Omar Torrijos, or Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. On the other hand, if you'd like a corny mystery novel full of clichés, I'm sure there are a lot of writers out there who did twice as good a job. If you'd like to just read about John Perkins, pick up this book.
As far as Perkins' writing style, it's obvious that he had a healthy serving of mystery novels and spy films prior to putting pen to paper. From the mysterious figure of "Claudine" to his absolutely pointless details about his exotic love affairs to clandestine meetings with nameless fallen power brokers in Persian tents, sometimes I had to laugh out loud at how contrived and self-serving Perkins' writing was. It's almost as if his sole desire was to leave some naïve reader thinking, "John Perkins certainly is a good man, and a James Bond-ish rake if I may say."
If you'd really like to know about the issues addressed in this book, get a book about Allende, or Omar Torrijos, or Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. On the other hand, if you'd like a corny mystery novel full of clichés, I'm sure there are a lot of writers out there who did twice as good a job. If you'd like to just read about John Perkins, pick up this book.