Dark Commerce - by Louise I Shelley (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A comprehensive look at the world of illicit trade

In the past three decades, technology has changed the fundamentals of trade, in legitimate and illegal economies. The most advanced forms of illicit trade have broken with all historical precedents and operate as if on steroids, tied to computers and social media. Dark Commerce examines how new technology, communications, and globalization fuel the exponential growth of dangerous forms of illegal trade--the markets for narcotics and child pornography, the escalation of sex trafficking, and the sale of endangered species. The illicit economy exacerbates many of the world's destabilizing phenomena: the perpetuation of conflicts, the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, and environmental degradation and extinction. Dark Commerce demonstrates that the dark market is a business the global community cannot afford to ignore.

Review Quotes

"Dark Commerce tells a gripping tale of how the exponential growth of illicit trade is risking human and planetary well-being. Shelley documents the mechanisms of illicit trade and helps us understand how it is causing an explosion in environmental crime and contributing to the world's sixth extinction. Revealing the sordid underbelly of a globalized trading system, this book is a must-read for all who are concerned with our collective future."--Frances Beinecke, former president of the Natural Resources Defense Council

"This is a refreshingly straightforward economic study."--Pennsylvania Literary Journal

"Dark Commerce argues that economic globalization in the last three decades has facilitated illicit trade on an unprecedented scale. This comprehensive book describes and analyzes organized crime in its contemporary manifestation while at the same time placing it in a historical context. With a huge quantity of data, this work makes a significant contribution to understanding the power of organized crime today and the need for much stronger recognition of its impact."--Laurence Cockcroft, cofounder of Transparency International and author of Global Corruption

"Illicit trade is changing global politics, economics, and society and Louise Shelley, one of the world's leading experts on transnational crime, shows how. This book is an indispensable update of the new forms that illicit activities are taking worldwide. A must-read."--Moisés Naím, distinguished fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Illicit and The End of Power

"Shelley's tour de force will stand as a monument in the field of illicit trade. Encyclopedic in factual reach and brilliant in explanatory power, Dark Commerce will be indispensable to policymakers, law enforcement officials, and scholars seeking to understand, regulate, and combat unlawful commerce in cyberspace and globalization's nether economy."--Alan D. Bersin, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

"Written by a leading scholar in the field of transnational and organized crime, Dark Commerce is impressive in its scope and detail. Shelley makes noteworthy comparisons of illicit markets and commendably traverses areas as diverse as rhino poaching and cybercrime. There is no other comparable book." --Peter Grabosky, author of Cybercrime

"[A] useful survey of varying kinds of black and dark markets."---Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution

"This is an informative study of the vast and pervasive problem of criminal trade."--Publishers Weekly

"Shelley unpeels [organized crime's] disturbing dynamics today through case studies such as Silk Road, a vastly lucrative cybersupermarket, and the much-documented illegal market in rhino horn . . . and she lucidly lays out the dark economy's planetary costs, as it escalates biodiversity loss and deforestation."---Barb Kiser, Nature

About the Author

Louise I. Shelley is the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy and University Professor at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, and founder and director of its Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center.