Amazon Reviews
748 of 1103 people found the following review to be helpful:
Too good to be true - too vague to be believed, April 2, 2005
By Michael E. Piston
"Confessions" is at once too good to be true and too vague to be believed. The author apparently had a successful career supporting requests for development loans for major electric utilities projects to the various less developed countries by grossly inflating their projected economic growth. His motivation for doing so was admittedly to keep his job (his boss was fired when he provided more realistic projections) and flourish in a consulting company whose financial success was clearly dependent upon the loans being approved so that their clients could get the lucrative contracts to do the construction work. Nevertheless, Perkins attempts to make what would just be another sordid tale of Enron-style numbers spoofing into a nearly epic story of official U.S. chicanery by alleging that fraud was perpetuated at the request of the American government in order to trap the borrower nations, apparently too ignorant or corrupt to watch out for themselves, into an eternity of economic and political servitude by intentionally burdening them with debts they could not pay. Unfortunately, despite Perkins career as a self-proclaimed "economist", his book is devoid of even a single statistic backing up this claim. Instead, it rests almost solely upon the words of a mysterious "Claudine" - a woman who present herself not as a U.S. government agent, but as a consultant to Perkins's employer - who in a series of secret meetings imbued this revelation to Perkins from on high as it were, much as Gabriel dictated the Qu'ran to Mohammed. To say that this story is hard to believe is to treat it with a respect it is manifestly undeserving. Perkins's main pitch seems to be that his own apparently solid status as an establishment insider is sufficient proof of his own credibility, despite his enthusiastic admissions that made a substantial fortune exagerrating and lieing for a living. Yet Perkins is no McNamara, but a best a midlevel manager in the "corportocracy" he exposes, and his story lacks the abundant details which made true insider accounts, like Phillip Agee's "Inside the Company" so unmistakably authentic and powerful. In fact, it is precisely its quasi-fictional nature, rather like Carlos Castaneda's dubious account of his dealings with Native American shamans, which makes "Confessions" such a good read. It reads like fiction because it basically is fiction, albeit interlaced with enough true events from the author's life and recent history to give it the veneer of plausibility. In the end it is useful mostly for the (few) books it cites in its (sparse) footnotes, which offer some useful insights into some of the lesser known incidents in the history of the American Empire, such as the abortive careers of Omar Torrijos and Jaime Roldos. But it cannot be treated as a serious contribution to the debate on globalization.
527 of 973 people found the following review to be helpful:
Spellbinding modern history, November 3, 2004
By Tom Jefferson
This book is spellbinding like a novel and a must read for anyone interested in Post World War II history. It is the story of America's march to dominate world politics and commerce told by an insider, a man who was there when the deals were struck. Although he may upset readers who want to believe that our leaders always wear white hats, the author's stated and obvious intent is to educate. In the end, he helps us see a way to realize America's Founding Fathers' dream of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all people everywhere. A chilling, yet ultimately positive and encouraging, narrative.
360 of 454 people found the following review to be helpful:
HUGE dissapointment, April 28, 2005
By iago18335
I really wanted to enjoy this book. I was looking forward to a description of how the World Bank, IMF and the 'aid industry' was collaborating to keep LDCs from actually realizing improvements in their systems.
Instead, John Perkins gives us wild speculation and claims with absolutly no facts to back them up. He describes his first assignment in Indonesia, tells how he 'cooked the books' and then completly ignores any further discussion of the matter. As a reader I have no idea if his economic estimates:
1) actually resulted in any loans, economic programs, etc.
2) if his inflated projections ended up being right or wrong
3) if (or how) internation institutions then used this situation to bend Indonesia to their will
Instead, Perkins just tells us (over and over again) about his guilt.
I do have to admit, I didn't finish reading this rubbish. I did skim the rest of the book hoping to actually find something of substance to substantiate his claims but couldn't find anything.
The most frustrating thing about this book is that I believe the author's claims might be right. It's just very unfortunate that he didn't do anything to prove them.
If you must, pick this up when it's in the dollar bin.
301 of 377 people found the following review to be helpful:
Utterly Implausible, March 22, 2005
By Sheryl Katz
I hated this book, and not for its politics.
The big problem I had with this book is that right from the beginning it strained credulity to the breaking point. Let's get this straight - there is no way, no how the NSA had anything to do with training this guy to be a so-called economic hit man. The phenomenom he describes no doubt exists, in the sense that big public utility projects financed by international banks can result in serious negative consequences for underdeveloped nations while lining the pockets of engineering firms. And the US policy in oil countries has been an unmitigated disaster (regardless of what you think of the Iraq war if our diplomacy had been successful we wouldn't be fighting it). But this secret 007 world of self-conscious economic hit men is a deranged fantasy.
Sorry folks, those of you who love byzantine conspiracy theories, it just isn't so. The NSA sits in a big nondescript building in Washington and engages in technological spying. Anything that has to do with human intelligence is the province of the CIA.
Since the book starts with a story that is utterly preposterous and inaccurate, and since this delusion is the foundation of everything that follows, it's hard not to find the entire thing annoying.
Part of what made me queasy is that there are truthful observations amid the nonsense. There is plenty that is reprehensible in the "corporatocracy" and in US involvement in foreign affairs. However, the reality is much more complex and shaded in hues of grey than Perkins' story. The book further inspires queasy feelings because the author freely admits many instances of dishonesty and duplicitous dealing while maintaining a stance of moral superiority. This book made me feel bathed in egotistical slime.
271 of 329 people found the following review to be helpful:
where are all the facts?, April 6, 2005
By Barry S. Kahn
I am afraid that this may be the worst book that I have ever read, not because it is not enjoyable to read, I actually flew through it, but because of how badly the author attempts to deceive the reader.
What begins as a novel concept and gives me the hope of being enlightened on how the World Bank, IMF, and the international business community deal with developing nations, ended up as an egotistical rant by John Perkins. I would have sufficed to hear one concrete piece of evidence proving this conspiracy by the US that he talks about. Instead, what I got is the impression that John Perkins feels the world revolves around himself as he uses names he jokingly used to refer to himself and his projects (Economic Hit Man, Saudi Arabian Money Laundering Affair) as if everyone else viewed them as the same. In reality, it does not appear that he was as important as he believed. I would love to tell Perkins that just because once upon a time that he interviewd with the NSA does not mean that they set up his future jobs and made him an undercover employee, so undercover that even he was not told of his true work. The only person in this story who can collobarate any conspiracy such as that he mentioned is a woman named Claudine who was his "mentor." Yet, there is no offical records of her working for MAIN, she dissapeared when Perkins left for Indonesia on his first assignment, and although he does not explicity say so, he had an affair with this woman. Based on this, the odds are clearly in favor of the fact that he merely had an affair with this woman, created the mentor story for his wife, and in the process was bragging to this woman about his job which they both decided could be appropriately called being an Economic Hit Man. That seems more realistic to me than that this company, MAIN, hired a woman, off the record, to approach him, seduce him, teach him secret information, and then dissapear without a trace. But that is just my opinion.
However, that is just the problem with the book, it is all just his opinion. Despite his being in the industry for over 20 years, Perkins never offers any insights, besides exagerating his own importance, that offer more of an insight into what is going on than I could have found with a scrapbook of newspaper clippings from the events in question. In fact I learned more about his inner strugles and decision to write this book than I did about international affairs. Perhaps that is my fault for not looking close enough into the title: "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." It is truly just a confessional, a book so Perkins can justify things that he belives he did wrong and why he did not stop doing them earlier.
That all being said, if you are interested in reading the confessional ramblings of an egotistical man who has managed to blur the line between truth and fiction in his own eyes, this is the book you have been dying for. However, if you were hoping to read about the world of international finance through the eyes of an educated participant, that book has yet to be published. There is a reason that no reputable publishing house would publish this book or that there are no quotes from esteemed literary critics on the cover. That reason is not that this book exposes a vast conspiracy as the author repeatedly contends; it is because this book is absolutely terrible.
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