Rogue Economics ─ Capitalism's New Reality

A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF 2008

STRAIGHT.COM FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2008

“Timely and fascinating, Napoleoni’s top-notch reporting, in which her attention turns from Viagra to blood diamonds to the banana price wars in a few pages, works in the vein of Freakonomics, and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, but much grimmer.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Loretta Napoleoni’s devilishly enjoyable journey into the money veins of the new global order—from sex slavery to fad-diet slavery...is truly incredibly original.”—GREG PALAST, AUTHOR OF THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY

“Rogue Economics offers a fascinating view of how terribly wrong things have gone.” —JOHN PERKINS, AUTHOR OF CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN

What do Eastern Europe’s booming sex trade, America’s subprime mortgage lending scandal, China’s fake goods industry, and celebrity philanthropy in Africa have in common? With biopirates trolling the blood industry, fish-farming bandits ravaging the high seas, pornography developing virtually in Second Life, and games like World of Warcraft spawning online sweatshops, how are rogue industries transmuting into global empires? And will the entire system be transformed by the advent of sharia economics? Economist and best-selling author Loretta Napoleoni examines how dark economic forces are creating victims out of millions of ordinary people whose lives have become trapped inside a world they don’t understand.

Loretta Napoleoni is the author of the best-selling book Terror Inc.: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism, which has been translated into twelve languages. One of the world’s leading experts on money laundering and terror financing, she has worked as London correspondent and columnist for Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, El Pais, and Le Monde. A former Fulbright scholar, she holds a PhD in economics, an MA in international relations and economics from Johns Hopkins University, and an MPhil in terrorism from the London School of Economics. For her work as a consultant for the commodities markets, she traveled regularly to Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries, where she has met top financial and political leaders. She lives in London.