Edited by Steven Hiatt
2007, Berrett-Koehler
ISBN-10: 1576753956
ISBN-13: 978–1576753958
250 pages

Review by Adrian Zupp, Com­mon Ground Mag­a­zine
In 2004, John Perkins’ Con­fes­sions of an Eco­nomic Hit­man cre­ated waves, spoke the unspeak­able and became a New York Times best­seller. In it Perkins came clean about how he’d helped US intel­li­gence agen­cies and multi­na­tion­als exploit the economies of Third World nations. A Game As Old As Empire — for which he wrote the intro­duc­tion — is the follow-up, and this time a wide vari­ety of in-the-know authors cor­rob­o­rate and expand upon Perkins’ story. And it’s fright­en­ing stuff.

In plain lan­guage — and pro­vid­ing suf­fi­cient his­tor­i­cal back­ground — we are shown how First World coun­tries have used “eco­nomic hit men,” insti­tu­tions like the World Bank and IMF, coer­cion and even out­right strong-arm tac­tics to steal from the devel­op­ing coun­tries — often in col­lu­sion with the elites of those coun­tries who are happy to hide their ill-gotten gain in off­shore accounts.

A Game As Old As Empire is well ref­er­enced, very read­able and per­versely enter­tain­ing. Hard data is com­bined with first-person nar­ra­tives and the machi­na­tions of inter­na­tional eco­nom­ics are made acces­si­ble for the layper­son. And the book goes one step fur­ther by offer­ing hope and prac­ti­cal advice. The chap­ter “Global Upris­ing: The Web of Resis­tance” by policy-analyst Anto­nia Juhasz sheds light on how peo­ple can change the cor­rup­tion and help cre­ate a bet­ter world. There is also an appen­dix: “Resources for Hope.”

With chap­ters such as “The Human Cost of Cheap Cell Phones” and “Hijack­ing Iraq’s Oil Reserves,” Game has a conscience-pricking currency.

- — - — -

Chap­ters:

Intro­duc­tion: New Con­fes­sions and Rev­e­la­tions from the World of Eco­nomic Hit Men
John Perkins

1. Global Empire: The Web of Con­trol
Steven Hiatt

2. Sell­ing Money—and Depen­dency: Set­ting the Debt Trap
S. C. Gwynne

3. Dirty Money: Inside the Secret World of Off­shore Bank­ing
John Chris­tensen

4. BCCI’s Dou­ble Game: Bank­ing on Amer­ica, Bank­ing on Jihad
Lucy Komisar
The Bank of Credit and Com­merce Inter­na­tional (BCCI) was a use­ful tool for many pow­er­ful clients, rang­ing from the CIA and the Medel­lín car­tel to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and influ­en­tial fig­ures in both the Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­tic par­ties. When BCCI was fi nally shut down, as much as $15 bil­lion had been lost or stolen—the biggest bank fraud in the world. Lucy Komisar reveals why bank­ing author­i­ties looked the other way for so long, and how BCCI’s long-time allies in Wash­ing­ton were able to block any mean­ing­ful inves­ti­ga­tion.

5. The Human Cost of Cheap Cell Phones
Kath­leen Kern

6. Mer­ce­nar­ies on the Front Lines in the New Scram­ble for Africa
Andrew Row­ell and James Mar­riott

7. Hijack­ing Iraq’s Oil Reserves: Eco­nomic Hit Men at Work
Greg Mut­titt

8. The World Bank and the $100 Bil­lion Ques­tion
Steve Berk­man

9. The Philip­pines, the World Bank, and the Race to the Bot­tom
Ellen Augus­tine

10. Export­ing Destruc­tion
Bruce Rich

11. The Mirage of Debt Relief
James S. Henry

12. Global Upris­ing: The Web of Resis­tance
Anto­nia Juhasz

THIS BOOK IS IN PRINT. Avail­able com­mer­cially.