Pick up a newspaper anywhere, any day, and you will find reports of illegal migrants, drug busts, smuggled weapons, and laundered money or counterfeit goods. Illicit trades are booming and so are the traffickers’ revenues—and their political influence. Hamstrung bureaucracies in rich and poor countries alike are losing the battles against these agile, well-financed, politically powerful, and ever-shifting networks of determined individuals. Religious and political zeal drive terrorists, but it turns out that simple profit is no less a motivator for political upheaval and international instability. Black-market networks are stealthily transforming global politics and economics. Filled with fast-paced, vivid examples that are as real as they are surprising, Illicit shows how we got to this dangerous point—and stresses the interconnections between these illegal enterprises, how they endlessly recombine to breed new lines of business, distort the economy of entire countries and industries, enable terrorists and even take over governments. From pirated movies to weapons of mass destruction, from human organs to endangered species, drugs or stolen art, Illicit reveals the inner workings of these amazingly efficient international organizations and shows why it is so hard—and so necessary—to contain them. Illicit offers a fresh, ingenious and compelling vision of this untold story of globalization. It provides a powerful new lens with which to assess how today’s world really works and where it may be headed. Illicit will surely ignite urgent debate at the highest levels—and change the way you think about the world.

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

Politics & Social Sciences

Naím, Moisés

Social Sciences

DOUBLEDAY

We know that power is shifting: From West to East and North to South, from presidential palaces to public squares, from once formidable corporate behemoths to nimble startups and, slowly but surely, from men to women. But power is not merely shifting and dispersing. It is also decaying. Those in power today are more constrained in what they can do with it and more at risk of losing it than ever before. In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research, Naím shows how the antiestablishment drive of micropowers can topple tyrants, dislodge monopolies, and open remarkable new opportunities, but it can also lead to chaos and paralysis. Naím deftly covers the seismic changes underway in business, religion, education, within families, and in all matters of war and peace. Examples abound in all walks of life: In 1977, eighty-nine countries were ruled by autocrats while today more than half the world's population lives in democracies. CEO's are more constrained and have shorter tenures than their predecessors. Modern tools of war, cheaper and more accessible, make it possible for groups like Hezbollah to afford their own drones. In the second half of 2010, the top ten hedge funds earned more than the world's largest six banks combined. Those in power retain it by erecting powerful barriers to keep challengers at bay. Today, insurgent forces dismantle those barriers more quickly and easily than ever, only to find that they themselves become vulnerable in the process. Accessible and captivating, Naím offers a revolutionary look at the inevitable end of power—and how it will change your world.

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn t What It Used to Be

Business & Money

Economics

Basic Books

The provocative bestseller explaining the decline of power in the twenty-first century -- in government, business, and beyond. Power is shifting -- from large, stable armies to loose bands of insurgents, from corporate leviathans to nimble start-ups, and from presidential palaces to public squares. But power is also changing, becoming harder to use and easier to lose. In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research and a lifetime of experience in global affairs, Naím explains how the end of power is reconfiguring our world. "The End of Power will ... change the way you look at the world."--Bill Clinton"Extraordinary."--George Soros"Compelling and original."--Arianna Huffington"A fascinating new perspective...Naím makes eye-opening connections."--Francis FukuyamaInaugural Pick for Mark Zuckerberg's "Year of Books" Challenge * Financial Times Best Book of the Year * Washington Post Notable Book * Washington Post Nonfiction Bestseller

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

Paper Tigers and Minotaurs is an insider's account of national transition from a protected and state-controlled economy to one relying on free markets and open trade. Venezuela's experience with dismantling an entrenched economic structure and coping with the political consequences of a new system is a national story with international lessons. It is recounted from the author's perspective as a minister directly involved in the process, a scholar equipped to understand its broader implications, and a World Bank executive director we acquainted with the international record of economic reforms. With an eye for paradox and the unexpected, the author retraces his country's passage through the maze of surprises and dangers that beset managers of large-scale reform. Some of the dangers turn out to be roaring but harmless paper tigers; others, the unexpected and deadly minotaur capable of derailing the entire process of reform. Distinguishing one from the other, a none-too-simple task, emerges as an indispensable survival skill for reformers everywhere.Venezuela, a country boasting one of the oldest and more affluent democracies in Latin America offers a case study exemplifying the complex links between market reforms and political instability. After the painful economic shock that accompanied the launching of the reform program in 1989, Venezuela enjoyed some of the highest economic rates in the world. Yet, this once politically stable, country turned suddenly and traumatically unstable. Two violent army revolts, widespread political turmoil and the ouster of President Carlos Andres Perez suddenly transformed a glowing example of successful economic liberalization into a gloomy reminder of the political costs of market reforms.In rich and illuminating detail, the book analyzes this transformation and the consequences of the new policies that were meant to deal with the deepest economic crisis in Venezuela's history. The crisis was a classic and instructive example for governments everywhere that are undergoing the transition toward markets and away from state intervention. The author examines the initial impact of the reforms on the country's economy and the social situation, including the practical problems and the politics of implementing social "safety nets" to help the poor cope with the harsh burdens of economic adjustments. The book deals forthrightly with the central challenges to economic reform: the military and its reaction to reform and instability; the link between economic liberalization and corruption; the emergence of "media barons" as a political force brandishing unprecedented power; the inability of the government to communicate effectively with the people and build support for the reforms; the effects of the fierce rivalries that broke out among private economic groups; the demise of Carlos Andres Perez, once the most popular and powerful of the country's political leaders.This engrossing reconstruction and interpretation of the Venezuelan experience is filled with lessons, insights, and deeper questions for all who enter the labyrinth determined to distinguish between the paper tigers and minotaurs that confront economic and political change.

Paper Tigers and Minotaurs: The Politics of Venezuela's Economic Reforms

Carnegie Endowment for Intl Peace

Political and economic reform is at the top of national agendas around the world. This book based on Moises Naim's participation in the Venezuelan reform experience and as executive director at the World Bank raises questions and explores problems crucial to achieving national reform strategies. Naim's lucid analysis grapples with the problems of dealing with entrenched interests bent on derailing reform; allaying the corrosive effects of corruption and public outcry over inequitable burdens; coping with the political instability brought on by decimated public institutions; managing the impact of reforms on the military establishment; and mobilizing public support for measures as essential as they are painful. The heady days of revolution are gone and these and other dilemmas now confront besieged reform governments everywhere. The problem of managing these in the real world is the subject this book tackles.

Carnegie Endowment for Int'l Peace

In Altered States, the authors provide practical recommendations for improved governance and for strengthening and reforming the United Nations. They explore the dynamics of globalization and discuss what makes today’s globalization distinct. They test the prevailing wisdom about sovereignty and state capacity, and sort out the humbug. They consider whether sovereignty itself is an impediment or a requirement to security and prosperity. And, in three urgent areas ripe for progress – preventing deadly conflict, providing opportunities for the young, and managing the many harms of climate change – they advance plans of action by which states, with others in the global community, can govern successfully in the future.

Altered States: Globalization, Sovereignty and Governance

Smith, Gordon

IDRC Books

About the Author\nMOISES NAIM is a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an internationally syndicated columnist. He served as editor in chief of Foreign Policy, as Venezuela's trade minister, and as executive director of the World Bank. His books include The End of Power and Illicit, which was the basis of a National Geographic documentary.\nNamed one of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2022\n“An authoritative and intelligent portrait of the global spread of authoritarianism and its dangers...what sets [this] work apart from books like Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny and Michiko Kakutani’s The Death of Truth is its unusually comprehensive armada of facts about the international drift over the past two decades toward authoritarian leaders, whether old-style dictators like Kim Jong Un or nominally elected presidents like Vladimir Putin.” ―Kirkus\nAn urgent, thrilling, and original look at the future of democracy that illuminates one of the most important battles of our time: the future of freedom and how to contain and defeat the autocrats mushrooming around the world.\nIn his bestselling book The End of Power, Moisés Naím examined power-diluting forces. In The Revenge of Power, Naím turns to the trends, conditions, technologies and behaviors that are contributing to the concentration of power, and to the clash between those forces that weaken power and those that strengthen it. He concentrates on the three “P”s―populism, polarization, and post-truths. All of which are as old as time, but are combined by today’s autocrats to undermine democratic life in new and frightening ways. Power has not changed. But the way people go about gaining it and using it has been transformed.\nThe Revenge of Power is packed with alluring characters, riveting stories about power grabs and losses, and vivid examples of the tricks and tactics used by autocrats to counter the forces that are weakening their power. It connects the dots between global events and political tactics that, when taken together, show a profound and often stealthy transformation in power and politics worldwide. Using the best available data and insights taken from recent research in the social sciences, Naím reveals how, on close examination, the same set of strategies to consolidate power pop up again and again in places with vastly different political, economic, and social circumstances, and offers insights about what can be done to ensure that freedom and democracy prevail.\nThe outcomes of these battles for power will determine if our future will be more autocratic or more democratic. Naím addresses the questions at the heart of the matter: Why is power concentrating in some places while in others it is fragmenting and degrading? And the big question: What is the future of freedom?

The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century

Legal Theory & Systems

St.Martin's Press

Named one of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2022"An authoritative and intelligent portrait of the global spread of authoritarianism and its dangers...what sets [this] work apart from books like Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny and Michiko Kakutani's The Death of Truth is its unusually comprehensive armada of facts about the international drift over the past two decades toward authoritarian leaders, whether old-style dictators like Kim Jong Un or nominally elected presidents like Vladimir Putin." --KirkusAn urgent, thrilling, and original look at the future of democracy that illuminates one of the most important battles of our time: the future of freedom and how to contain and defeat the autocrats mushrooming around the world.In his bestselling book The End of Power, Moisés Naím examined power-diluting forces. In The Revenge of Power, Naím turns to the trends, conditions, technologies and behaviors that are contributing to the concentration of power, and to the clash between those forces that weaken power and those that strengthen it. He concentrates on the three "P"s--populism, polarization, and post-truths. All of which are as old as time, but are combined by today's autocrats to undermine democratic life in new and frightening ways. Power has not changed. But the way people go about gaining it and using it has been transformed.The Revenge of Power is packed with alluring characters, riveting stories about power grabs and losses, and vivid examples of the tricks and tactics used by autocrats to counter the forces that are weakening their power. It connects the dots between global events and political tactics that, when taken together, show a profound and often stealthy transformation in power and politics worldwide. Using the best available data and insights taken from recent research in the social sciences, Naím reveals how, on close examination, the same set of strategies to consolidate power pop up again and again in places with vastly different political, economic, and social circumstances, and offers insights about what can be done to ensure that freedom and democracy prevail.The outcomes of these battles for power will determine if our future will be more autocratic or more democratic. Naím addresses the questions at the heart of the matter: Why is power concentrating in some places while in others it is fragmenting and degrading? And the big question: What is the future of freedom?

Revenge of Power

Philosophy

Griffin

A groundbreaking investigation of how illicit commerce is changing the world by transforming economies, reshaping politics, and capturing governments.In this fascinating and comprehensive examination of the underside of globalization, Moises Naím illuminates the struggle between traffickers and the hamstrung bureaucracies trying to control them. From illegal migrants to drugs to weapons to laundered money to counterfeit goods, the black market produces enormous profits that are reinvested to create new businesses, enable terrorists, and even to take over governments. Naím reveals the inner workings of these amazingly efficient international organizations and shows why it is so hard — and so necessary to contain them. Riveting and deeply informed, Illicit will change how you see the world around you.

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

Reference

Anchor

Product Description 
From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Power comes an edge-of-your-seat political thriller about rival spies, dangerous love, and one of history’s most devastating revolutions. 
Venezuela, 1992. Unknown colonel Hugo Chávez stages an ill-fated coup against a corrupt government, igniting the passions of Venezuela’s poor and catapulting the oil-rich country to international attention. For two rival spies hurriedly dispatched to Caracas―one from Washington, DC, and the other from Fidel Castro’s Cuba―this is a career-defining mission. 
Smooth-talking Iván Rincón of Cuba’s Intelligence Directorate needs a rebel ally to secure the future of his own country. His job: support Chávez and the revolution by rallying the militants and neutralizing any opposing agents. 
Meanwhile, the CIA’s Cristina Garza will do everything in her power to cut Chávez’s influence short. Her priority: stabilize the greatest oil reserves on the planet by ferreting out and eliminating Cuba’s principal operative. 
As Chávez surges to power, Iván and Cristina are caught in the fallout of a toxic political time bomb: an intrepid female reporter and unwitting informant, a drug lord and key architect in Chávez’s rise, and personal entanglements between the spies themselves. With everything at stake, the adversaries find themselves at the center of a game of espionage, seduction, murder, and shifting alliances playing out against the precarious backdrop of a nation in free fall. A thrilling fictional story based on unimaginable real-life events. 
 Review 
Praise for Two Spies in Caracas 
A New York Times Globetrotting Pick! 
An Amazon Best Book of the Month: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense 
“Naím wields his experiences as an international affairs writer and former Venezuelan economic cabinet member to provide authoritative insights into the severe economic downturns and rises in violence stemming from the power plays of external actors seeking to exploit a vulnerable nation in turmoil. This is a must for anyone who wants to explore this tumultuous and often strange period in modern Latin American history.” —Publishers Weekly 
“A nail-biting modern-history thriller set in 1990s Venezuela, Two Spies in Caracas: A Novel is a tale of crisscross alliances, easily betrayed…Intense, and written with the realism drawn directly from the author’s personal experience serving as a former member of Venezuela’s economic cabinet, Two Spies in Caracas is enthusiastically recommended especially for connoisseurs of the genre.” —Midwest Book Review 
“[A] sharp, effective indictment of Hugo Chávez and the late tyrant’s brand of authoritarian populism.” —Foreign Affairs 
Praise for The End of Power 
“A remarkable new book by the remarkable Moisés Naím.” —Richard Cohen, Washington Post 
“Naím is a courageous writer who seeks to dissect big subjects in new ways.” —Wall Street Journal 
“[A] highly original, interdisciplinary meditation on the degeneration of international power…The End of Power makes a truly important contribution.” —Washington Post 
“This fascinating book…should provoke a debate about how to govern the world when more and more people are in charge.” —Foreign Affairs 
“After you read The End of Power, you will see the world through different eyes. Moisés Naím provides a compelling and original perspective.” —Arianna Huffington 
“[Naím] makes his case with eloquence.” —Financial Times 
“A timely and timeless book.” —Booklist 
“Having served as editor in chief of Foreign Policy and executive director of the World Bank, Naím knows better than most what power on a global scale looks like…[A] timely, insightful, and eloquent message.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) 
“The End of Power will change the way you read the news, the way you think about politics, and the way you look at the world.” —William Jefferson Clinton 
“In my own experience as president of Brazil, I observed firsthand many of the trends that Naím identifies in this book, but he

Two Spies in Caracas: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

United States

Amazon Crossing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Naím, Moisés. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Naím, Moisés

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Naím, Moisés. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn t What It Used to Be

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

Paper Tigers and Minotaurs: The Politics of Venezuela's Economic Reforms

Paper Tigers and Minotaurs: The Politics of Venezuela's Economic Reforms

Altered States: Globalization, Sovereignty and Governance

The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century

Revenge of Power

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

Two Spies in Caracas: A Novel