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Sep 23, 2010

Mona rated it:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, while purportedly the author's memoir and hard-hitting expose of his work in the "corporatocracy", reads more like a flat and repetitive mass market thriller. In the 1970s, John Perkins began working for MAIN, an international consulting firm, as an economist who developed inflated projections of development in poor countries, so that they would then become dependent on richer countries like the United States. As Perkins explains, the "corporato More...

2 comments like (19 people liked it)

Nov 22, 2007

Scott rated it:

Terrible. Here's the book in a nutshell. "I'm in <3rd world country> doing <something bad not backed up by any statistics>. I feel bad about this. I meet <friendly 3rd world local who teaches me the local language>. He takes me to <cultural festivity that no other white man has ever seen>. I learn <specific critique of US imperialism>. I return to my out of touch american enclave and happen upon <famous dictator/dissident/writer>. He <describes More...

6 comments like (35 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2011

Will rated it:

This is a remarkable work, decades in the making. Perkins is the real deal, an economist who worked for international consortia to pillage the third world. The modus operandi was to perform economic analysis of target nations that indicated a rate of growth far in excess of any real possibility in order to justify offering those nations huge loans, loans they were never expected to be able to repay. The point of this was twofold. First, the money loaned would find its way right back in the pocke More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 09, 2007

Anna rated it:

Good message, important, but reads like fiction. If this guy wanted to have any serious impact he should have written something less sensational. Also, he's a jackass. He spent his whole life screwing over everybody, including his friends, and then he writes a book (for which he probably made lots of money and became famous) and we're supposed to believe this guy suddenly developed a conscience? I don't buy it.

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Oct 10, 2011

Kainan rated it:

My short review is this: 'Confessions' is a good introduction to the darker side of foreign policy and the effects of globalization.

My slightly longer explanation is this: Paradoxically, what makes the book more accessible is also what turns many people off to it. It takes a chunk of history about a particular topic, and describes it in largely narrative form. Much of this is due to the book being an 'account' of Perkins' career during that time. Admittedly, it becomes somewhat taxin More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 21, 2008

Trevor rated it:

At the end of Three Days of the Condor the guy who is not Robert Redford, the guy who is the evil CIA operative who has been trying to ‘bring him home’ throughout the film - which we have guessed is a euphuism for ‘take him out’ - is talking about why the CIA does bad, manipulative things in the world. He tells Redford that it is simple economics and anyway, what would Redford expect them to do? Redford says he should ask the American people first. The CIA man looks at Redford in the way so m More...

3 comments like (15 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2008

Maura rated it:

I'd had high expectations of this book and was very disappointed--mostly because I wasn't able to get past the fact that Perkins is a chauvinistic pig who I hated from the beginning til the end. He must have thought the fact that he later wrote a "confessional" about being a chauvinistic pig would make his readers forgive him or feel sorry for him, but that definitely wasn't the case for me. Also, he writes like a horny 10th grader--very poorly, and in the middle of discussing serious More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2007

Len rated it:

I don't know why I keep reading books like this...I only get more and more depressed about the state of the world. Perkins' story is well told and it kept me interested throughout.

Like a lot of other political books I've read of late, this one is made even more relevant by the events that have occurred even in the short time since it was published. The book tells the tale of the American led imperialism around the world leading up to the events of 9/11 and even the subsequent invasi More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2010

sonia rated it:

It's an interesting story. He has the perspective of the "insider" in the whole international development industry. Obviously then, his tales of drinking coffee with Torijjos or dealing with Iranian revolutions in the 1970s is fun to read.

Although, he reaches a point by the end of the book where he goes a bit overboard with his guilt. You empathize with him all the way through the book until he just starts spewing nonsense about feeling guilty for Iraq and 9/11. I think it More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2009

Jeff rated it:

Boring, self righteous, and, it turns out, totally made up!

7 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2011

Amy rated it:

This book got 5 stars because it is highly disturbing and everyone especially Americans should read this book. Perkins writes his true story of what he did when he was an economic hit man. The basic gist is that he went to other countries promising the growth of their economy if they contracted engineers and workers from the States to install infrastructures such as electricity and running water. It looks like a great idea to the government because they are "helping" their people by cr More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2009

Thamrong rated it:

Nothing altruistic about foreign aids; multilateral agencies come in many colors and shapes like World Bank,Asian Bank, US Aid and IMF. Less developed countries leaders succumbed to the temptation of selling their sovereignty to the devils. The lucrative loans for infrastructure loan is not meant for social development to benefit the poor mess instead to ensnare the host countries for political allegiance and control. Who benefits! The local oligarchy. The book reinforce my believe of the decept More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2008

Seth rated it:

if you are not familiar with this book, it is the memoir of a purported "economic hit man" (he says people of this profession call themselves that) who has seen the error of his ways and wants to alert the world to a vast corporate conspiracy that enslaves us in a vicious cycle of global economic hegemony, debt and warfare.

i should say that i think the basic structure of his observations is true - that is, i believe the events he describes, and more or less in his observati More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2007

Sean rated it:

This is garbage. Worse than that, I think this book is dangerous. First of all, I think Perkins is a total liar. I don’t doubt that there are people out there that make their living by betting against developing countries, and I don’t doubt that there are people who have an economic incentive for progressive third world leaders to fail. But I really doubt that the way these people ply their trade is by having beautiful blonds show young business guys (in this case, Perkins) the dark path by inte More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Aug 13, 2007

Dan rated it:

This book is autobiographical by a former economist for the world bank. He describes how he undermined the economies and governments of third world countries by making wildly optimistic projections about their growth as to facilitate getting them into debt to first world countries. There is lots of personal cloak and dagger type anecdotes about how he was supposedly trained by the NSA.

This book is written simply and it reads quickly. The writing in simplistic and narrative. Altho More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 02, 2007

Emily rated it:

Hah, this book PROVES it! Now anyone who wants to argue that the American government is involved in the economies of foreign counries puerly for humanitarian reasons can take off the blinders! For that matter, anyone who doesn't think that MOST of what the US is doing in other countries is screwed up can also remove said blinders. This book, while not incredibly well written, chronicles the experiences of John Perkins, a former Peace Corps volunteer, as he embarks on the career of "econo More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2007

Jeff rated it:

Here's why a lot of people won't like this book: it's brutally honest, historically accurate, and it has a message.

Here's why a lot of people will like this book: see above.

Perkins story about himself is not for everyone; I'll tell you that right now. The biggest reasons are a) his constant dealings with historical leaders, politics, and world geography throughout the 60's, 70's, and 80's; and b) even though he translates many economic terms and explains what he's doing, More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 17, 2007

Nathan rated it:

The scariest thing about this book is that if you read it having read nothing about the CIA or the overseas financial games the agency (and US corporations acting with CIA influence) has played around the world, it seems like frightening fiction written by a conspiratorial nutjob. If you read it having read a few books about the history of the CIA, you're twice as scared because you know it all may be true. Perkins writing is fitting for the topic, and reading Confessions of an Economic Hitman i More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Matthew rated it:

I love the whole conspiracy theory, hiding behind the ignorant veil the masses, theme that this book so intelligently portrays. This book takes a unique approach to the entire world of cloak and dagger showing how the economic pressures placed upon many of the world's struggling nations through the devious actions of America, in cooperation with many other superpowers, are actually more devastating than even our military ones. This book made me excited, sad, and angry all at once. It is a great More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 08, 2008

Maura rated it:

This is a TERRIFYING, DEPRESSING but MUST-READ book giving an insider's perspective into American corporate amorality.

I appreciate that the author wrote this book and honestly detailed his role in the exploitation of less-developed countries. The author's company worked on the assumption that everyone in power is corruptible; heartbreakingly, this turned out to be almost entirely accurate. I strongly disliked the author for the irreparable damage he's done to countless innoce More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Martine added it

I don't think this book is all that shocking. Is anyone REALLY surprised that politicians and corporations are using the system, deceiving others, and benefiting off third world resources? Are we surprised that people in power work with other people in power to their mutual financial benefit? that wars are really about resource issues? So maybe the fact that I wasn't shocked at all made this such an incredibly dry read. The style was very repetitive. By the end I was groaning out loud eac More...

0 comments like

Dec 03, 2008

Adam rated it:

In this tell-all-tale we learn about John Perkins' life as an Economic Hit Man, or EHM. Traveling the globe for a highly respected but suspiciously opaque consulting company, MAIN, Perkins efforts help to submit developing nations to the relentless and undying power of the emerging 'Coporatocracy.'

Using numbers, or more precisely, comfortably padded economic forecasts, Perkins convinces the leaders of developing nations to take on enormous development projects contracted by the co More...

0 comments like

Dec 02, 2011

Keeler rated it:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man written by John Perkins is an interesting tale describing all of the supposed monstrosities involving the United States government. Opening with a long story of his child. As a child Perkins was a top athlete, captain of multiple teams and also a straight A student with consistent excelling grades. Not so much later Perkins joined the peace corps and began working in Ecuador. This inevitably inspired him to want to More...

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Nov 30, 2011

Henry rated it:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a personal memior of the author, John Perkins. He describes his transformation from his morally streight childhood to what he calls an "EHM" or Economic Hit Man. Perkin's describes a EHM as "highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. (xi)" From his personal reccolection Perkins states that in his work he essentially loaned third world countries so much money that they could not pay them bac More...

0 comments like

Nov 28, 2011

Brent rated it:

TL;DR: This book was written by a hypocrite who made a lot of money before calling it quits. The book is aimed at bleeding hearts who think corporations are the devil's spawn and that everything America does overseas is pure evil.

John Perkins should have titled his book "Confessions of an Economic Hypocrite" since he had no qualms benefitting from the corporatocracy while claiming a conflicted conscience. He spent decades making money doing things he felt were wrong, and he f More...

0 comments like

Nov 10, 2011

Seana rated it:

I read this partly hoping to read some tales of derring-do and partly to get some sort of insight into the type of person who enters into the shadow world, and wasn't terribly rewarded in either case. I am not even sure that Perkins is typical of the kind of person who does what he did, which was basically to manipulate economic data to lend credence to various projects that the enterprises he worked for wanted to see done. He seemed to have qualms early on, and to have sought out people who wou More...

0 comments like

Nov 09, 2011

Cameron rated it:

This is an excellent book! John Perkins was the first Peace Corps volunteer to live with the Shuar tribe in Southern Ecuador in the late 60's. After that he was recruited to work for a large international development firm where he spent almost 2 decades traveling the globe as a senior economist using USAID and World Bank funds to promote US interests abroad. As it turned out, his job was to use his influence to buy off the leadership in 3rd world countries to take on large (onerous) loans to More...

0 comments like

Sep 04, 2011

6655321 rated it:

Wasn't really very useful, you could get most of the information in it from reading any number of economic histories (Bello, Trachte & Ross, and Harvey all come to mind), however, what the text accomplishes is instilling the sort of gossip culture/human angle stuff that 'mericans seem to love and coating it with the alter-globalization that will probably do more to save capitalism than alleviate the effects of international finance, the military, the intelligence community and contracting firms More...

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Aug 13, 2011

Ahmed rated it:

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, Per More...

0 comments like

Jul 30, 2011

Lester rated it:

You MUST read this! If any amount of it is true (I assume it is) then the world is a much darker place than most of us are exposed to. John Perkins was involved in a business which is, according to him, responsible for the sorry state in which much of the poorer world finds itself today. It is also responsible for a few wars and invasions, and thus the deaths of thousands of people and the devastation of a number of ecologies. All in the name of capitalism and what he calls the "American em More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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