The Hidden Globe

How Wealth Hacks the World

By: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Narrated by: Patrick Harrison

NAMED ONE OF THE TOP 5 BOOKS OF 2024 ON CBS SUNDAY MORNING

ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2024

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

“Vivid, revelatory, and politically unpredictable…What bothers Abrahamian, in the end, isn’t the anarchic but the unfair; if capital is free, people deserve the same respect.” —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker

"A season of unrest looms ahead, and The Hidden Globe lays out the unvarnished truth in a luminous feat of reportage.”—Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Borders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist’s riveting account exposes a parallel universe that has become a haven for the rich and powerful.

A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of this hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed their only commodity: bodies, in the form of mercenary fighters. Over time, economists, theorists, statesmen, and consultants evolved ever more sophisticated ways of exporting and exploiting statelessness, in the form of free trade zones, flags of convenience, offshore detention centers, charter cities controlled by foreign corporations, and even into outer space. By mapping this countergeography, which decides who wins and who loses in the new global order—and helping us to see how it might be otherwise—The Hidden Globe fascinates, enrages, and inspires.

Excellent!!!

This is well researched and gave listeners an opportunity to verify sources and consider other writers.

Intriguing

This book is an interesting journey to places that aren’t like those most of us visit. These are also not worlds I’d ever thought much about and so was eager to learn more. They are hard for me to grasp conceptually only partly because I don’t do business with such financially elite and usually unethical players, and their professional, cultural language isn’t mine. The writing here is historical, political, philosophical, and poetic. The narration was excellent.

why a male narrator?

I didn't notice until after purchasing that this book written by a woman was narrated by a man; huge distracting disappointment. The content is great, both interesting+illuminating and distressing+disheartening.
Worth reading.

First 75% is good, then author loses focus

I found the first 2/3 to 3/4 of this book to be educational, well-researched and worthwhile. Then in the last few chapters, the author digressed more and more from the topic, spending far too much time on the history and adventures of a Soviet built cruise ship that was scrapped in 2022, a personal trip to or near Svalbard, etc. This seems more of an editing failure than anything else. The narration was good throughout. I learned a fair amount from this book but regret the several hours wasted at the end.

Enlightening new material

Ms. Abrahamian plows through amazing and new material about renegade states around the world. Fascinating. She is a very refined writer, making it a pleasure. I gave the performance 3 stars for turning over a woman's tale to a male narrator.