The Hidden Globe - by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Borders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist's riveting account exposes a parallel universe exempt from the laws of the land, and how the wealthy and powerful benefit from it. The map of the globe depicts the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that bestow and restrict the rights of the citizens and entities within their borders. For wealthy individuals and corporations, however, borders are porous, and the globe is pockmarked with thousands of special zones that exist beyond any nation's control, for their benefit. And for those at the opposite end of privilege, the map fails to prevent exploitation by foreign powers, or willfully creates cracks where refugees fleeing war and hardship can be captured and kept in stateless limbo indefinitely. In this fast-paced and fascinating narrative, Atossa Abrahamian explores this parallel universe. Starting in thirteenth-century Switzerland, where a confederation of poor cantons marketed the commodity they had - bodies, in the form of mercenaries - she stalks the legacy of statelessness around world, from an Emirati-owned port in Somalia to the new charter cities, semi-autonomous city-states in poor countries like Honduras that are controlled by foreign governments or multinational corporations, to Luxembourg, which wants to use its tiny perch to send capitalism into outer space via asteroid mining. Along the way, we meet the shadowy CEOs, visionary statesmen, eccentric theorists, prize-winning economists, and alarming ideologues who are the masterminds of this parallel order. By mapping the hidden geography that increasingly determines who wins and who loses in the new global order - and how it might be otherwise - The Hidden Globe fascinates, enrages, and inspires"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Hidden Globe

"You may think you have a pretty good idea of the world map, but Atossa Araxia Abrahaman explains how special economic zones, tax havens, and freeports are carving up the planet for the highest bidders and leaving millions of people worse off. The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World makes a very complicated legal and financial subject clear, exciting, and deeply troubling."--Ron Charles of the Washington Post on CBS Sunday Morning

"Vivid, revelatory, and politically unpredictable ... ranges far beyond obscured transactions and nested shell companies to much weirder patterns of jurisdictional flexibility ...What bothers Abrahamian, in the end, isn't the anarchic but the unfair; if capital is free, people deserve the same respect." --The New Yorker

"An engrossing journey. . . Abrahamian is a perfect guide . . . One of the most innovative contributions of The Hidden Globe is to highlight how these realms outside the governance of nation-states offer unchecked privilege and wealth for a select few while also increasing some of the most extreme forms of vulnerability and precarity that exist today."--The Nation

"A brilliant expose of international tax havens reveals how the ruling class shapes our world... In her stellar work of literary journalism, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian peels back murky history and legalese to expose the machinations of these enclaves, how they thrive beyond the reach of laws, sovereign unto themselves... A season of unrest looms ahead, and The Hidden Globe lays out the unvarnished truth in a luminous feat of reportage."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A survey of all the world's purposely hidden crannies and crevices, the places where chronologies collapse and laws are loosened and entire nations are put up for sale... The world Abrahamian depicts is truly visible only to those who know where to look--it is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere and, to swipe a phrase, almost too big to see."--The New Republic

"Very worthwhile ... Abrahamian populates her book with sharply drawn characters... aiming at a broader intellectual and moral point. ... A timely warning."--The Washington Post

"Provide[s] a window into how just a few economists and consultants could change the way countries around the world operate." --The New York Times Book Review

"Sharply observed descent into the labyrinth of finance and semantics with which nations and the superrich secure their wealth. . .A multilayered tale of how privilege works to protect itself."--Kirkus Reviews

"A revelatory look at a globe-spanning collection of 'offshore jurisdictions, ' 'legal black holes, ' and 'free zones'. . . .Abrahamian begins by delving into the histories of contemporary tax havens. . .but her scope is far broader. . .an impressive achievement." --Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

"Fascinating--reads like a novel yet packs a policy punch for anyone interested in global migration, licit and illicit corporate networks, legal fictions and realities, and the ongoing mutation of the nation-state. Read it, share it, and above all, reflect on the paradox that while we grapple with how to exert physical control over the digital world, we ignore the creation of vast new legal and physical spaces in plain sight." --Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, and Professor and Dean Emerita, Princeton University

"The Hidden Globe eloquently verifies a long-inarticulate suspicion: that our world has been invisibly remade. Traveling to different parts of the world, Abrahamian describes insidiously interconnected global regimes of inequality and injustice. In the process, she boldly renews our sense of reality and brilliantly illuminates our political impasse." --Pankaj Mishra, author of The Age of Anger

"Although we imagine the world as divided neatly into nation-states, it is in fact strewn with loopholes, islands, freeports, and zones where the usual laws don't apply. Such places don't draw attention, but they matter enormously. Atossa Abrahamian is the ideal guide--fluid, sharp-eyed, and thoughtful--to this hidden landscape." --Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire

About the Author

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian is a journalist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York magazine, the London Review of Books, and other publications. The author of The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen and a 2024 New America National Fellow, she has worked as an editor at The Nation, an opinion editor at Al Jazeera America, and a reporter for Reuters. She grew up in Geneva and lives in Brooklyn.