What makes the control of corruption so difficult and contested? Drawing on the insights of political science, economics and law, the expert contributors to this book offer diverse perspectives. One group of chapters explores the nature of corruption in democracies and autocracies, and “reforms” that are mere facades. Other contributions examine corruption in infrastructure, tax collection, cross-border trade, and military procurement. Case studies from various regions – such as China, Peru, South Africa and New York City – anchor the analysis with real-world situations. The book pays particular attention to corruption involving international business and the domestic regulation of foreign bribery.

From the prizewinning journalist and internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world comes a major work that looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future. “If you want to save America, this might just be the most important book to read now." —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that the United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, she argues, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members. In this unflinching exploration of corruption in America, Chayes exposes how corruption has thrived within our borders, from the titans of America's Gilded Age (Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression, and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution--undermining this nation's proud middle class and union members. She then brings us up to the present as she shines a light on the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment and documents Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, which aimed to systematically undo the Constitution and our laws. Ultimately and most importantly, Chayes reveals how corrupt systems are organized, how they enable bad actors to bend the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they overtly determine the shape of our government, and how they affect all levels of society, especially when the corruption is overlooked and downplayed by the rich and well-educated.

"A shocking and engrossing exposé of the US meat industry, the devastating failures of the country's food system, and the growing disappointment of alternative meat producers claiming to revolutionize the future of food by the head of Forbes's Food, Drink, and Agriculture division, Chloe Sorvino"--

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011 One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year In Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy. Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research from coauthor Joshua Rosner—who himself raised early warnings with the public and investors, and kept detailed records—Morgenson connects the dots that led to this fiasco. Morgenson and Rosner draw back the curtain on Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance giant that grew, with the support of the Clinton administration, through the 1990s, becoming a major opponent of government oversight even as it was benefiting from public subsidies. They expose the role played not only by Fannie Mae executives but also by enablers at Countrywide Financial, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, HUD, Congress, and the biggest players on Wall Street, to show how greed, aggression, and fear led countless officials to ignore warning signs of an imminent disaster. Character-rich and definitive in its analysis, and with a new afterword that brings the story up to date, this is the one account of the financial crisis you must read.

Referring to college athletics as amateur sports is as archaic as football’s flying wedge that was outlawed almost a century ago. College athletics are all about multi-million-dollar programs, billion-dollar television contracts, corporate control and cronyism. Power greed and corruption have turned the top athletic programs into money-making machines controlled as much by people outside the program as university presidents and athletics directors. Few, if any, books written about college athletics closely examine the behind the scenes deal making, how lucrative contracts are awarded and the favored few who benefit. This book reveals how and why sports decisions were made at the University of Kentucky, one of the nation’s top programs, how they were influenced by powerful elements who profited, sometimes by questionable legal and ethical tactics from these actions. Six years of solid academic research stands behind the facts revealed in this book.

A vivid history of the economics of greed told through the stories of those major figures primarily responsible. Age of Greed shows how the single-minded and selfish pursuit of immense personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States over the last forty years. Economic journalist Jeff Madrick tells this story through incisive profiles of the individuals responsible for this dramatic shift in our country’s fortunes, from the architects of the free-market economic philosophy (such as Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan) to the politicians and businessmen (including Nixon, Reagan, Boesky, and Soros) who put it into practice. Their stories detail how a movement initially conceived as a moral battle for freedom instead brought about some of our nation's most pressing economic problems, including the intense economic inequity and instability America suffers from today. This is an indispensible guide to understanding the 1 percent.