Praise for the Finance Curse
“A splendid polemic against modern finance . . . hard-hitting, well written and informative.”
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, best books of 2018
“Gripping . . . persuasive . . . a superbly written overview.”
Ann Pettifor, Times Literary Supplement
A bright light goes on while reading The Finance Curse . . . puts everything wrong with the political world into neat, tidy perspective . . . The shenanigans are legendary . . . The unusually excellent Conclusion alone is worth the price of admission . . . This is a rare book of substantive answers.
San Francisco Review of Books
“The thesis at the heart of this volume is simple, artfully presented, easily digested. . . an anecdote-filled, approachable history of (big) business… Engaging.”
Boston Globe
[A] deeply researched cri de coeur. . . his urgent tone cuts through the financial jargon to produce clear, commonsense arguments.
– Publishers Weekly
Excoriating – a radical, urgent and important manifesto. . . Coming seven years after his groundbreaking Treasure Islands, which told the story of Britain’s tax havens, this new book broadens his assault on the foundations of the modern globalised financial system.
Oliver Bullough, The Guardian
Prospect Magazine: Best books of 2018
Eight years ago Nick Shaxson wrote [Treasure Islands,] one of the best books about modern finance. Now Shaxson is back, with something bigger to say . . . with forensic accounting analysis, sharp reporting and interviews.
John Arlidge, Sunday Times
The book opens a serious fight with the very fundamentals of finance and its so-called expert institutions and cultures. The Finance Curse is a global call to action.
London School of Economics Review of Books.
Having exposed the curse of the oil-dominated economies in his superb Poisoned Wells, Nicholas Shaxson is now deploying his forensic skills to expose the curse of finance in general and of the City of London in particular. . . . the Finance Curse is essential reading.
Yanis Varoufakis
A host of instructive discussions of a variety of elements to bolster his argument, including corrupt financiers in London and New York City, geographically obscure tax havens, the bizarre realm of wealth managers in South Dakota, a ravaged newspaper in New Jersey, and a shattered farm economy in Iowa. “Financialization,” writes the author, “hasn’t just sucked money and power away from rural communities; it has extracted their dignity. A vivid demonstration of how corruption and greed have become the main organizing principles in the finance industry.
Kirkus Reviews
‘This superbly written book shows definitively how global finance has been grossly mis-sold to us all. It’s a must-read for anyone who lives, works and spends in this country’
Misha Glenny, author of McMafia
Searing . . . Shaxson has form on being prescient [and] his ideas should not be dismissed lightly.
Caroline Binham, Financial Times
‘A powerful call to arms against a self-serving, over-bearing and growth-sapping global finance system.’
Stewart Lansley, author of A Sharing Economy and The Cost of Inequality
Award, US Society of the Silurians, for Vanity Fair article on Donald Trump.
Praise for Treasure Islands
A fascinating, chilling book
– Paul Krugman
An utterly superb book . . . a story told with uncommon vigor and insight.
– Jeffrey Sachs (also here.)
Perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year
– George Monbiot, The Guardian
An absolutely riveting book . . . . a gobsmacking indictment of a global conspiracy that makes City bonuses seem like small change.
– The Herald
A blistering account of the role that tax havens play in international finance. . . brilliant.”
– London Review of Books
Should be on everyone’s bookshelf.
– Pauline Skypala, Financial Times
This excellent book … breathtaking and terrifying.
– Irish Times
Fascinating and horrifying
– John Lanchester
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
A bombshell
– Bibi van der Zee, The Guardian
Seminal
– The Economist
A vigorous and well-researched polemic
– Foreign Affairs
Treasure Islands has prised the lid off an important and terrifying can of worms
– Literary Review
“la remarquable étude de Nicholas Shaxson”
– Mediapart
“This engrossing book will make you think again . . . first-rate forensic work.”
– The Independent.
Put down this magazine now and rush to your local library or closest bookshop and get your hands on perhaps the most important book to appear in recent years for those who care about social justice.
– Red Pepper
Nicholas Shaxson’s excellent Treasure Islands
– David Cay Johnston
A fascinating narrative that is both analytically compelling and rich in institutional detail.
– Nancy Folbre, New York Times Economix site.
Treasure Islands, Nicholas Shaxson’s excellent book on the global offshore tax system
– Financial Times Alphaville
This important new book
– Lee A. Sheppard, Tax Notes
Possibly the most important political book that I have read since The Spirit Level.
– Stuart Weir, co-founder of Charter 88, former editor of the New Statesman
Nicholas Shaxson digs deeper than any previous research on the size and shape of global finance and the extent to which it is now beyond the reach of most national governments. . . essential context for the likely next scenarios as 24-7 high-frequency trading in globalized financial markets outstrips the fixed geographies of nations and their governments.
– Seeking Alpha
Shaxson admirably lays out the history of how tax havens have become such an insidious feature of the global economy. . . . his book will help us get serious about shutting down offshore tax abuses
– Senator Carl Levin, chair of U.S. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
A must read for anyone who wants to understand the hidden reasons why financial services firms have become so powerful and impossible to reform.
– Yves Smith, creator of Naked Capitalism and author of Econned
Shaxson does an outstanding and socially valuable job in penetrating the impenetrable and finds a deeply shocking world.
– Nicholas Stern, former World Bank chief economist, author of The Stern Review
A powerful exposé of the offshore world
– Private Eye
Uplifting . . reveals the incredible networks woven by the City
– Le Monde
Nothing short of Shakespearean, a drama full of secrecy, treachery and corruption.
– Kirkus Reviews
I would go as far as saying this book is the No Logo for a new century.
– Sunny Hundal, Liberal Conspiracy
Shaxson shows us that the global financial machine is broken and that very few of us have noticed.
– New Statesman
Tax havens have faced the treaty onslaught of the OECD and stared the leaders of the G20 in the eyes, but it is a new book, adopted by grass-roots tax-justice campaigners and the media alike, which is now causing them most aggravation. . . . A polemical yet erudite study.
– Spears magazine
Shortlist – Spears Business Books of the Year
Best financial and economic books of 2011 – Financieele Dagblad
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 excellent Treasure Islands . . . Shaxson comes as close to anyone ever has in getting to the crux of the tax haven conundrum, which is to attempt to answer the question: why are they tolerated?
– Evening Standard
A dismaying Big Bang of a book: a chronicle of capitalism’s frailty and foulness that digs far beyond its tax haven title.”
– Peter Preston, The Guardian
For quite a while I have not read such a well-researched, good to read and politically relevant book
– Christian Humborg, Executive Director of the German Chapter of Transparency International
The struggle against money power is a struggle for human freedom, and Nicholas Shaxson’s investigation is a timely exposé of where the plunder is buried.
– John Pilger, broadcaster and author of Heroes
A superb and crucial book.
– New Internationalist
Treasure Islands is the best book on tax havens, ever. It shines a light in some very dark places. It reads like a thriller. The shocking thing is, it’s all true. The world’s suppliers of corruption services – the bankers, lawyers and accountants working from tax havens – won’t want you to read this book. Which is exactly why you should.
– Richard Murphy, Director of Tax Research UK
Pacy, well-written book . . . a page-turner. Whatever tall tales Nicholas Shaxson told his publisher to get this book signed off, I’m glad he did.
– Sunday Times
Not just a crucial exposé of the corrupt systems endemic in the global economy, but also a rousing call to do something about them
– Sunday Telegraph
Nicholas Shaxson shows that the real challenge to America’s economy comes not from China – but from the Caymans, the Bahamas, and a whole hot-money archipelago loosely under the control of the City of London. If only as a civics lesson, read this astonishing book to find out the true political constitution of the world.
– Thomas Geoghegan, author of Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?
An easily digestible overview of the labyrinthine nature of the world of offshore finance.
– Seeking Alpha
A useful critique
– Tyler Cowen
Nicholas Shaxson’s excellent book on tax havens
– Ed Conway, economics editor, Sky News
Off-shore is not a remote place, it is a process of colossal tax evasion and regulatory warfare. ‘Offshore’ is a clear, present and immediate threat to every nation’s ability to support and protect its citizens and control its economy. ‘Offshore’ is a partly orchestrated, partly evolved world of stateless money and power populated and used by a loyalty free financial elite to degrade Democracy, suborn Sovereignty and destroy national Independence. Profound charges you might think. And so they are. And in a lesser book you might discount them as perhaps a little hysterical. But not in Mr Shaxson’s book because of page after page after chapter, of documented evidence. The freight train of evidence is a testament to Shaxson’s hard and thorough work, but also to the fact that so little of this story has been told elsewhere.
David Malone, author of The Debt Generation
Far more than an exposé, Treasure Islands is a brilliantly illuminating, forensic analysis of where economic power really lies, and the shockingly corrupt way in which it behaves. If you’re wondering how ordinary people ended up paying for a crisis caused by the reckless greed of the banking industry, this compellingly readable book provides the answers.
– David Wearing, co-editor of New Left Project
An absolute gem that deserves to be read by anyone interested in the way contemporary globalization is undermining social justice. Give it to your sons, daughters, families, favourite legislators and anyone else needing stimulation of their thoughts. This masterpiece illuminates the dark places and shows the visible hand of governments, corporations, banks, accountants, lawyers and other pirates in creating fictitious offshore transactions and structures and picking our pockets.
– Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex
They who sold us globalisation as a way of the whole world getting richer with fair rules, cheated us by letting the rich and powerful go “offshore”. This gripping exposé should help end the scandal.
– Anthony Barnett, Founder, openDemocracy
In this riveting, well-written expose, Shaxson goes deep into the largely unexamined realm of offshore money. In the process, he reveals that this shadow world is no mere sideshow, but is troublingly central to modern finance, with the US and the UK as leaders. The resulting abuses are widespread, ranging from tax revenue stripping from African nations to individuals and corporations escaping enforcement and accountability. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the hidden reasons why financial services firms have become so powerful and impossible to reform.
– Yves Smith, creator of Naked Capitalism and author of Econned
Every once in a while a book comes along that changes a mass audience’s view of the world. . . .It seems Treasure Islands is the wake-up call the world has been waiting for.
– Green Left
Transcendent, enlightening . . like a John le Carré thriller.
– Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development
– John O’Farrell, AgendaNI (Northern Ireland)