McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
By:
Misha Glenny
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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Description:
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the deregulation of international financial markets in 1989, governments and entrepreneurs alike became intoxicated by forecasts of limitless expansion into newly open markets. No one would foresee that the greatest success story to arise from these events would be the globalization of organized crime. Current estimates suggest that illegal trade accounts for nearly one-fifth of global GDP.
McMafia is a fearless, encompassing, wholly authoritative investigation of the now proven ability of organized crime worldwide to find and service markets driven by a seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares. Whether discussing the Russian mafia, Colombian drug cartels, or Chinese labor smugglers, Misha Glenny makes clear how organized crime feeds off the poverty of the developing world, how it exploits new technology in the forms of cybercrime and identity theft, and how both global crime and terror are fueled by an identical source: the triumphant material affluence of the West.
To trace the disparate strands of this hydra-like story, Glenny talked to police, victims, politicians, and members of the global underworld in eastern Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, China, Japan, and India. The story of organized crime’s phenomenal, often shocking growth is truly the central political story of our time. McMafia will change the way we look at the world.
Description:
Amazon Significant Seven, April 2008: In McMafia, Misha Glenny draws the dark map that lies on the other side of Tom Friedman's bright flat world. That connected globe not only brings software coders and supply-chain outsourcers closer together; it's also opened the gates to a criminal network of unsettling vastness, complexity, and efficiency that represents a fifth of the earth's economy, trading in everything from untaxed cigarettes and the usual narcotics to human lives and nuclear material. Glenny's a Balkans expert, and he begins his story there, with the illicit--but often state-sponsored--underworld that grew out of the post-Soviet chaos, but he soon follows the contraband everywhere from Mumbai and Johannesburg to rural Colombia and the U.S. suburbs. It's not just a hodgepodge of scare clips, though: Glenny reports from the ground but follows the leads as high as they go, showing how the dark and bright sides of the flat world are more connected than we imagine. --Tom Nissley
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: 2008-04-08
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Fascinating (and Brave) Examination of Global Crime - After reading his impressive history of the Balkans, I was drawn to anything with Glenny's name on it. This volume starts in the Balkans and follows the criminal underworld in all its connectedness and complexity across the globe. Glenny focuses on how globalization has impacted the criminal underworld and repeatedly reminds the reader that licit and illicit markets continually cross paths in this age of globalization. Glenny is fearless in that he does not hesitate to highlight those involved in these activities--no matter how wealthy or connected they are. This is an important and eye-opening read.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Organized crime nowadays - Interested in the interaction of globalization, the downfall of Communism and the disastrous war against drugs on the one hand and organized crime on the other ? Then this book is a must. The author has travelled all over the world and interviewed many pf the important players in this drama. He tells an absorbing tale.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
McDUMMIES - Argh !!!, never mind, Best book I have read in a while, forget what the perfectionist say. I lived abroad and I AM NOT A RACIST, when I say 75% of the world is 150 years behind us. DO NOT PROJECT YOUR IMAGE ON THE REST OF THE WORLD, It does not work. Think before you write, naive ignorant people are not liberal or conservative, there are just plain dangerous.
Customer Review: 2 out of 5
Interesting then tedious - He started off with exhilariting accounts of the criminal organizations which rose out of the chaos of the fall of the USSR and other sectarian wars in Eastern Europe but got bogged down in anecdote. Still, it was food for thought and spells trouble for the new world order.
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Shocking... - McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Borzoi Books) This is a well written, documented, expose' of the global criminal network and operations. The author's professional expertise and research combine to show clearly the extent of the 'darkside'. Criminal operations are far more extensive in global life and business than the great majority of people realize. Read this and remove the veil.
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