Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy

Book excerpt: Today's global economy has a dark underbelly. Using cutting-edge technology and age-old techniques of deceit and manipulation, corporate spies are the hidden puppeteers of globalized business. They control markets, determine prices, influence corporate decisions, and manage the flow of data and information of some of the world's biggest conglomerates. In an age when international conflicts are as likely to be corporation versus corporation as they are to be nation versus nation, the actions of these remarkably efficient covert operatives raise a host of crucial—and frightening—moral and legal questions. In his gripping, alarming exposÉ, Eamon Javers recounts the sordid history of this hidden world—from Allan Pinkerton, the nation's first "private eye," through Howard Hughes's private CIA, to the shocking realities of a vast modern-day spying network with tentacles reaching into virtually every corner of the globe.