Writers, insiders, journalists, economists, historians, and investigations that help readers go deeper into debt, intervention, intelligence operations, corporate power, and financial imperialism.
Insiders
People whose firsthand work inside development, intelligence, government, finance, or covert operations helps contextualize the themes in John Perkins's books.
Served as Chief Economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000 and won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001. In Globalization and Its Discontents, he argues from firsthand experience that IMF structural adjustment programs often made conditions worse for developing countries and that the World Bank, IMF, and their analyses often served the interests of Wall Street rather than the countries they claimed to help.
A Stanford Business School PhD who worked in international development, including with USAID, Harvard Business School's MBA program, and the Harvard Institute for International Development. In When Corporations Rule the World, The Post-Corporate World, and Agenda for a New Economy, he argues that the global economic system is structured to serve the rich and powerful, complementing Perkins's narrative account with an analytical frame.
Spent 21 years as a CIA case officer in the Middle East and Central Asia. See No Evil and Sleeping with the Devil describe operational realities inside intelligence work, the US-Saudi relationship, and the entanglement of corporate policy, oil money, and intelligence institutions.
Co-wrote The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, one of the first books the US government tried to censor before publication. Marchetti was special assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA, and Marks was a State Department officer who worked with the intelligence community. The book documents corporate and media cover, deception of oversight, and incentives for covert action.
The 1975 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities exposed assassination plots, COINTELPRO, illegal surveillance, relationships between intelligence agencies and journalists, and the use of corporations, foundations, and academic institutions as fronts for operations.
In All the Shah's Men, the former New York Times correspondent documents the 1953 Iran coup and the role of corporate interests in CIA operations, including United Fruit in Guatemala and Anglo-Iranian Oil in Iran.
A British-born mercenary known for operations in Africa, including the CIA-funded 5 Commando mission in Congo. His later failed Seychelles coup attempt is discussed in The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and his books include The Seychelles Affair and Congo Mercenary.
A CIA-linked Cuban exile operative involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion, the capture and death of Che Guevara, the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, and aspects of the Iran-Contra operation. His memoir Shadow Warrior describes decades of covert activity.
Worked for the Defense Department, the National Security Council, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, and the RAND Corporation. Beyond The Pentagon Papers, he wrote and spoke extensively about empire, nuclear policy, and government deception, especially in The Doomsday Machine.
A longtime CIA officer who became a critic of the agency. In Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA, he describes operations in Asia and argues that intelligence was often shaped to fit political and corporate objectives.
Journalists, historians, and researchers
Researchers and writers whose investigations overlap with debt, intervention, corporate power, intelligence operations, and financial imperialism.
The Shock Doctrine documents how crises can be engineered or exploited to push through IMF, World Bank, and other governmental policies.
A journalist whose articles and books examine CIA interventions and assassination plots. His best-known book is Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.
His reporting and books, including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, examine the colonialist actions of the World Bank, IMF, and related institutions, especially in Latin America.
An economist who writes about dollar hegemony, debt, and the IMF as tools of financial imperialism.
A Fate Worse Than Debt and Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations Are Seizing Power document multinational corporate influence and the use of World Bank and IMF loans as leverage over developing nations.
An Australian journalist and filmmaker who documented US and British economic and military interventionism, particularly in Southeast Asia and Latin America.
In IOU: The Debt Threat, she examines debt as a tool of control over developing nations. In The Silent Takeover, she warns that corporate greed, financial institutions, and deregulated markets undermine democracy.
Won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Pentagon's black budget. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA draws from declassified documents and documents the relationship between corporations and the intelligence community.
A Wall Street Journal reporter and NPR host whose The Crimes of Patriots and Endless Enemies offer journalistic accounts of the links among US corporate interests, intelligence operations, and foreign policy.
The Devil's Chessboard is a deeply researched biography of Allen Dulles, arguing that the CIA's formative years were shaped by deep ties to Wall Street law firms, corporations, and elite interests.