This is the autobiography of a man whose job was to entice leaders of underdeveloped countries. In the 1970s John Perkins was an economic hit man, among those highly paid professionals who cheat developing countries of trillions of dollars by funnelling aid money into the coffers of transnational corporations. Fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion and a lot of other kinds of sleaze were his stock-in-trade. Perkins begun to confess his role and expose the game since the early 1980s, but was stopped by bribes and threats. The realization that the events of September 11 were somehow linked to his dealings proved the final spur.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man belongs to a rich tradition of corporate insiders puncturing less seemly aspects of their professions. In the 1920s, stock speculator Jesse Livermore revealed the many underhanded secrets to his success as a trader in Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. The roman-