John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.

Very disappointing, overly and naively ideological

I was expecting to become better informed on serious international events. I read the critiques, took a shot at the introduction. I'm usually a fairly good judge on books.

This book is an exception to the rule. Very poorly constructed for fiction. Very implausible for non-fiction.

If Perkins had just told of a life transacting falsely and confessed his role among others and within a larger framework of geopolitical intentions, this may be been a more informative and enjoyable read. This is not at all what Perkins does. The majority of this book is an extreme leftist, quasi Marxist, wholly anti-American tirade. If Michael Moore and Dick Cheney are your idea of idealogues on opposing extremes, Perkins would by comparison become the extremist further to the left still and make them both appear middle-of-the-road.

Great title - all down hill after that . . .

I was duped into buying this book by the title. The text that follows within shows me only another bragadocious, let's-talk-about-me baby-boomer whose qualified contrition combines with way overdone hyper-hype about his less than seductive, less than convincing role as some sort of economic spy.

There are several fatal flaws in this work. One, Perkins never works directly with or in concert with any intelligence service. You get this gnawing sense that his vague references on this topic only reveal imaginary friends. Two, his every confession is pre and post-qualified with all of these rationalizations about how he was always better than the crook he is describing and mea culpas that are preceded and followed by blaming others. Three, his theme of third world oppression through debt has just recently been blown to shreds as the wealthiest nations prepare to wipe clean the debt of the poorest nations. Four, if this were all about his bad deeds and confessing them so as to make right and shine light on others who do now or then what he did, why does he spend so much time on idealogical nonsense - attacking free markets, corporations and America's very existence? Five, if I want to read about someone's sociopathic beginnings in an ideal childhood environment with loving parents and good schools, I will read Stephen King or watch a horror movie. Six, even if the reader were to give him a pass on proving any of this, his story itself is unbelievable even without the proof. Seven, the book is an awful knock-off of a bad movie plot. The dialogue across character maintains the narrative voice. There is no distinction or variation among voices across cultures and years. Eight, the entire agenda of domination he describes reads much more like his own greed and that of his consulting company. Never does the reader get any substantive sense that his money-grubbing ways had larger geopolitical motives. There is a nine and ten and on and on.

If you are tempted by the witty title and all that it may imply, the above should give you some indication of the ways in which this book falls woefully short of delivering any of its at-a-glance promise.

Repressions of An Arrogant Boy Man

If you believe this book is about secret agents and spies and power politics around the world, think again. This book is all about the repressions and regressions of a disturbed man child who does the most peculiar gymnastics from childhood events to adulthood daydreams. Self-importance and some anti-capitalist agenda are the only themes of this book. John Perkins should look in the mirror and say, "I am a big boy now. I like me and people do, too. John will be a good boy today and tomorrow. And, he is sorry for being a bad, bad boy up until now."

That would be more medicinal and helpful than this nonsense of a book. Nothing here instructive. Nothing here quite believable. Nothing here entertaining. Plenty of negative stuff and America bashing if that's your thing.