McMafia. Droga, armi, essere umani: viaggio attraverso il nuovo crimine organizzato globale

Things I learned from reading this book: Illegal trade accounts for 20% of global GDP. If you want a hit done right and cheaply, hire the Serbs. The fall of communism is the single most important event accounting for the rise of global criminal syndicates. There are a lot of brothels in Tel Aviv. Bollywo Leggi tutto

This review must start with a confession to my darling “big sis” Julie: I found this book because I watched the TV series starring our beloved James Norton, saw it was based on a book and hunted down a copy, only to find out the book contains a few anecdotes which were the basis of the show’s plot ( Leggi tutto

I was initially wary of this account of contemporary organised crime. Misha Glenny's 'Fall of Yugoslavia' had frustrated me as good narrative but weak analysis. I need not have been so concerned. Yes, Glenny still does not quite 'get' that he is being fed a line sometimes by people who have an inter Leggi tutto

I'm generally sceptical of books that purport to change one's view of the world, but when one of them does come along, its a welcome surprise. McMafia ranks one of the two best books I've read so far this year -- the other being Alan Weisman's The World Without Us -- in the very personal terms of ha Leggi tutto

Maybe I spend too much time immersed in crime, maybe its the fact that this book is over a decade old bur really it didn't tell me anything new. The opening section was a less in depth version of Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism where the chaos that followed the fall of co Leggi tutto

Allereerst is het handig om te vermelden dat ik groot voorstander ben van de EU, Schengen en dat ik globalisering over het algemeen een best wel tof verschijnsel vind. Juist daarom heb ik besloten dit boek te lezen, om een beetje buiten mijn eigen bubbel te raken. Deels gelukt overigens, nog steeds

In my International Studies senior seminar we had to pick a book that dealt with globalization/globalism and present a project on it. Naturally, most people thought to pick the obvious such as The World is Flat. After a quick Amazon search this book popped up and I figured it had to be good because

It's been a while since I've been sorely disappointed by a book. Unfortunately, this is one of those instances. Don't get me wrong, the material is impeccably researched, and perhaps much of the fault lies with yours truly for expecting a different book at the outset without doing due diligence. What Leggi tutto