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, visiionary 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.

Autorentext

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Klappentext

******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.