Overview

Whether it's pumping oil, mining resources or shipping commodities across oceans, the global economy runs on extraction. Promises of frictionless trade and lucrative speculation are the hallmarks of our era, but the backbone of globalisation is still low-cost labour and rapacious corporate control. Extractive capitalism is what made - and is still making - our unequal world. Professor Laleh Khalili reflects on the hidden stories behind late capitalism, from seafarers abandoned on debt-ridden container ships to the nefarious reach of consultancy firms and the cronyism that drives record-breaking profits. Piercing, wry and constantly revealing, Extractive Capitalism brings vividly to light the dark truths behind the world's most voracious industries.

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9781805223375

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Reviews

A book that I couldn't put down .... profound and compelling, Khalili shines a light on actors and institutions that typically go unseen: from shipping firms and management consultants, through to finance companies and fraudsters. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the state of the world today -- Adam Hanieh, author * Crude Capitalism * Extractive Capitalism will make a lot of economists think they have been wasting their time on abstract equations when they could have been writing about the real stuff of the economy - blood, dirt, oil and violence -- Dan Davies, author * The Unaccountability Machine * Laleh Khalili, once more, describes with great clarity and precision the ways in which capitalism extracts, dispossesses and exploits. She traces the colonial roots of extractive capitalism focusing on two primary commodities, oil and sand, and shows the costs for the planet and the human species. She has an eye for details and anecdotes that illuminate the voracity and brutality of that economy. Essential reading, especially in our current time. -- Françoise Vergès, author * A Decolonial Feminism * Praise for Sinews of War and Trade: Readers will delight in the book's originality - there is truly nothing else like it -- Marcus Rediker, author * The Slave Ship * The scale of this book is breath-taking but the story is intimate and expertly crafted, moving from entire coastlines to city streets and singular body movements. This is a poetry of place -- Deborah Cowen, author * The Deadly Life of Logistics * Laleh Khalili's fascinating new book opens the window on another world -- Adam Shatz

Praise for Sinews of War and Trade: Readers will delight in the book's originality - there is truly nothing else like it -- Marcus Rediker, author * The Slave Ship * The scale of this book is breath-taking but the story is intimate and expertly crafted, moving from entire coastlines to city streets and singular body movements. This is a poetry of place -- Deborah Cowen, author * The Deadly Life of Logistics * Laleh Khalili's fascinating new book opens the window on another world -- Adam Shatz

Author Information

Laleh Khalili is Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter. An expert on transnational politics, she has written widely on globalisation, capital and neo-colonialism, and has worked as a consultant and an engineer. Her recent books include Sinews of War and Trade and The Corporeal Life of Seafarers.

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