Overview

“Vivid, revelatory, and politically unpredictable…What bothers Abrahamian, in the end, isn’t the anarchic but the unfair; if capital is free, people deserve the same respect.” — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker ""A season of unrest looms ahead, and The Hidden Globe lays out the unvarnished truth in a luminous feat of reportage.”—Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune Borders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist’s riveting account exposes a parallel universe that has become a haven for the rich and powerful.   A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of this hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed their only commodity: bodies, in the form of mercenary fighters. Over time, economists, theorists, statesmen, and consultants evolved ever more sophisticated ways of exporting and exploiting statelessness, in the form of free trade zones, flags of convenience, offshore detention centers, charter cities controlled by foreign corporations, and even into outer space. By mapping this countergeography, which decides who wins and who loses in the new global order—and helping us to see how it might be otherwise—The Hidden Globe fascinates, enrages, and inspires.

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Reviews

Praise for The Hidden Globe: “The Hidden Globe eloquently verifies a long-inarticulate suspicion: that our world has been invisibly remade. Traveling to different parts of the world, Abrahamian describes insidiously interconnected global regimes of inequality and injustice. In the process, she boldly renews our sense of reality and brilliantly illuminates our political impasse.” – ankaj Mishra, author of The Age of Anger   “Although we imagine the world as divided neatly into nation-states, it is in fact strewn with loopholes, islands, freeports, and zones where the usual laws don’t apply. Such places don’t draw attention, but they matter enormously. Atossa Abrahamian is the ideal guide—fluid, sharp-eyed, and thoughtful—to this hidden landscape.” –Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire

Praise for The Hidden Globe: “Fascinating—reads like a novel yet packs a policy punch for anyone interested in global migration, licit and illicit corporate networks, legal fictions and realities, and the ongoing mutation of the nation-state. Read it, share it, and above all, reflect on the paradox that while we grapple with how to exert physical control over the digital world, we ignore the creation of vast new legal and physical spaces in plain sight.” –Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, and Professor and Dean Emerita, Princeton University “The Hidden Globe eloquently verifies a long-inarticulate suspicion: that our world has been invisibly remade. Traveling to different parts of the world, Abrahamian describes insidiously interconnected global regimes of inequality and injustice. In the process, she boldly renews our sense of reality and brilliantly illuminates our political impasse.” –Pankaj Mishra, author of The Age of Anger   “Although we imagine the world as divided neatly into nation-states, it is in fact strewn with loopholes, islands, freeports, and zones where the usual laws don’t apply. Such places don’t draw attention, but they matter enormously. Atossa Abrahamian is the ideal guide—fluid, sharp-eyed, and thoughtful—to this hidden landscape.” –Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire

Praise for The Hidden Globe: “Sharply observed descent into the labyrinth of finance and semantics with which nations and the superrich secure their wealth. . .A multilayered tale of how privilege works to protect itself.”–Kirkus Reviews ""A revelatory look at a globe-spanning collection of 'offshore jurisdictions,' 'legal black holes,' and 'free zones'. . . .Abrahamian begins by delving into the histories of contemporary tax havens. . .but her scope is far broader. . .an impressive achievement."" –Publishers Weekly, STARRED review “Fascinating—reads like a novel yet packs a policy punch for anyone interested in global migration, licit and illicit corporate networks, legal fictions and realities, and the ongoing mutation of the nation-state. Read it, share it, and above all, reflect on the paradox that while we grapple with how to exert physical control over the digital world, we ignore the creation of vast new legal and physical spaces in plain sight.” –Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America, and Professor and Dean Emerita, Princeton University “The Hidden Globe eloquently verifies a long-inarticulate suspicion: that our world has been invisibly remade. Traveling to different parts of the world, Abrahamian describes insidiously interconnected global regimes of inequality and injustice. In the process, she boldly renews our sense of reality and brilliantly illuminates our political impasse.” –Pankaj Mishra, author of The Age of Anger   “Although we imagine the world as divided neatly into nation-states, it is in fact strewn with loopholes, islands, freeports, and zones where the usual laws don’t apply. Such places don’t draw attention, but they matter enormously. Atossa Abrahamian is the ideal guide—fluid, sharp-eyed, and thoughtful—to this hidden landscape.” –Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire

Author Information

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian is a journalist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York magazine, the London Review of Books, and other publications. The author of The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen and a 2024 New America National Fellow, she has worked as an editor at The Nation, an opinion editor at Al Jazeera America, and a reporter for Reuters. She grew up in Geneva and lives in Brooklyn.

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