Offshore bookcover

Offshore

Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism

This title will be released on

calendar iconAugust 5, 2025

4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world

Description

How do the rich keep getting richer, while dodging the long arm of the law? From playboy billionaires avoiding taxes on private islands to Russian oligarchs sailing away from sanctions on their superyachts, the ultra-rich seem to live in a different world from the rest of us. That world is called offshore. Hidden from view, the world's ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way.

In Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism, sociologist Brooke Harrington reveals how this system works, as well as how it degrades democracy, the economy, and the public goods on which we all depend. Harrington spent eight years infiltrating this secretive world by training as a wealth manager, traveling from glossy European and North American capitals to developing countries in South America and Africa, to islands in the Indian Ocean, Caribbean, and South Pacific regions. Through interviews with dozens of wealth managers in nineteen countries, Harrington uncovered how this global network of offshore financial centers arose from the remnants of colonialism and has created a new, hidden imperial class

This engrossing deep dive reveals what offshore finance costs all of us, and how it has colonized the world--not on behalf of any one country, but to benefit a largely invisible empire of a few thousand billionaires, who help themselves to the best society has to offer while sticking us with the bill. As politicians struggle to address the deepening economic and political inequality destabilizing the world, Harrington's exposé of the offshore system is a vital resource for understanding the most pressing crises of our time.

Product Details

PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
Publish DateAugust 05, 2025
Pages176
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9781324110323
DimensionsN/A

About the Author

Brooke Harrington is a professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth College, a certified wealth manager, and an advisor to the OECD and European Parliament, among other organizations. She is the author of several books, including the best-selling Capital without Borders.

Reviews

Offshore centres sell secrecy. Such secrecy, Harrington argues, is indeed a source of wealth, but also a threat to law-governed democracy.--Martin Wolf, Financial Times, "Best books of 2024: Economics"
A riveting and eye-opening dive into the offshore world by a sociologist who, through participant observation methods, has revolutionized the study of the subject. This book is a must read for anyone concerned about the future of inequality and the future of democracy.--Gabriel Zucman, author of The Hidden Wealth of Nations
At a time when autocracies are proliferating, and with them practices of institutionalized theft and corruption, sociologist and certified wealth manager Brooke Harrington reveals the workings of the secretive offshore system that props up autocrats and damages democracies around the world. An essential read for our times.--Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen
Intriguing and timely, this book will be of interest not only to academics, but to anyone seeking an understanding of the hidden forces behind global wealth inequality.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
You cannot understand the world of the super-rich without reading Brooke Harrington. Literary, intrepid, and utterly original, she writes with insight and humor. Offshore is a portrait of plutocracy that is drawn not from statistics but from real-world encounters that the world almost never sees.--Evan Osnos New Yorker staff writer and author of Wildland

Earn by promoting books

Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.sign up to affiliate program link
Become an affiliate