Borders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist’s account exposes a parallel universe that has become a haven for the rich and powerful.
Abrahamian’s interviews with the people — the vast majority of them men — who helped develop and run these special economic zones provide a window into how just a few economists and consultants could change the way countries around the world operate. But her accounts of the conversations can be meandering, and sometimes divert her from a focus on the final product: the unusual jurisdictions her book seeks to illuminate ... Finding solace in a place without borders makes for a nice conclusion, but it skips over the question of what to do about the rest of the world — the hidden globe of Abrahamian’s title. The answer might require another book.
Where Abrahamian pushes things forward—or backward, at least in terms of timing—is in tracing the world of offshored finance to its roots and taking us back to the country, and even the city, where it all began ... Some of the book’s sections feel shoehorned in: a chapter on immigration detention centers used, and abused, by Australian authorities draws on powerful reporting but has little bearing on, as the book’s subtitle promises, how “wealth hacks the world.” Still, other explorations—of how Singapore has transformed into a center for money laundering via the antiquities trade, or how U.S. authorities reinforce Puerto Rico’s colonial status via a series of tax loopholes that only benefit wealthy Americans—are newly revealing.
