Dark Money: How A Secretive Group Of Billionaires Is Trying To Buy Political Control In The Us

Description

A LITHUBBOOK OF THE DECADE. The US is one of the largest democracies in the world - or is it? America is experiencing an age of profound economic inequality. Employee protections have been decimated, and state welfare is virtually non-existent, while hedge fund billionaires are grossly under-taxed and big businesses make astounding profits at the expense of the environment and of their workers. How did this come about, and who were the driving forces behind it? In this powerful and meticulously researched work of investigative journalism, New Yorkerstaff writer Jane Mayer exposes the network of billionaires trying to buy the US electoral system - and succeeding. Led by libertarian industrialists the Koch brothers, they believe that taxes are a form of tyranny and that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom. Together, they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars influencing politicians and voters, and hijacking American democracy for their own ends. Dark Moneybrilliantly illuminates a shady corner of US politics. It is essential reading for anybody interested in the future of democracy.

About the Author

Jane Mayer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three bestselling and critically acclaimed narrative nonfiction books. She co-authored Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984â€“1988, with Doyle McManus, and Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas, with Jill Abramson, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, for which she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, was named one of The New York Timesâ€™s Top 10 Books of the Year and won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Goldsmith Book Prize, the Edward Weintal Prize, the Ridenhour Prize, the New York Public Libraryâ€™s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. For her reporting at The New Yorker, Mayer has been awarded the John Chancellor Award, the George Polk Award, the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, and the I. F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence presented by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. Mayer lives in Washington, D.C.