Treasure Islands

Reviews / Votes

An utterly superb book -- Jeffrey Sachs Shaxson combines meticulous research with amusing anecdotes, resulting in a very readable account of the murky world of offshore and a strong moral message that the system needs to be changed * Financial Times * Excellent... Shaxson comes as close as anyone ever has in getting the crux of the tax haven conundrum, which is to attempt to answer the question: why are they tolerated? - Evening Standard * Evening Standard * A fascinating, chilling book -- Paul Krugman Not just a crucial expose of the corrupt systems endemic in the global economy, but also a rousing call to do something about them -- Holly Kyte * Sunday Telegraph * Perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year -- George Monbiot * Guardian * Trade and investments can play a profoundly productive role on the world economy. But so much of the capital flows that we see are associated with money laundering, tax evasion, and the wholesale larceny of assets often of very poor countries. These thefts are greatly facilitated by special tax and accounting rules or designed to "attract capital" and embodying obscure and opaque mechanisms. Shaxson does an outstanding and socially valuable job in penetrating the impenetrable and finds a deeply shocking world -- Nicholas Stern At last, a readable - indeed gripping - book which explains the nuts and bolts of tax havens. More importantly, it lays bare the mechanism that financial capital has been using to stay in charge: capturing government policy-making around the world, shaking off such irritants as democracy and the rule of law, and making sure that suckers like you and me pay for its operators' opulent lifestyles -- Misha Glenny, author of McMafia The struggle against money power is a struggle for human freedom, and Nicholas Shaxson's investigation is a timely expose of where the plunder is buried -- John Pilger, broadcaster and author of Heroes A gripping read... an account illuminated by anecdotes that are often more James Bond than eurobond... Shaxson shows us that the global financial machine is broken and that very few of us have noticed * New Statesman *