Dark Money

A LITHUB BOOK OF THE DECADE Dark Money brilliantly illuminates a shady corner of US politics. It is essential reading for anybody interested in the future of democracy.

The US is one of the largest democracies in the world - or is it?

America is experiencing an age of profound economic inequality. Employee protections have been decimated, and state welfare is virtually non-existent, while hedge-fund billionaires are grossly under-taxed and big businesses make astounding profits at the expense of the environment and of their workers.

How did this come about, and who are the driving forces behind it?

In the powerful and meticulously researched work of investigative journalism, New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer exposes the network of billionaires trying to buy the US electoral system - and succeeding. Led by libertarian industrialists the Koch brothers, they believe that taxes are a form of tyranny and that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom. Together, they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars influencing politicians and voters, and hijacking American democracy for their own ends.

Dark Money brilliantly illuminates a shady corner of US politics. It is essential reading for anybody interested in the future of democracy.

'A triumph ... Mayer has cut through the secrecy that these men have carefully cultivated ... and given the world a full accounting of what had been a shadowy and largely unseen force.' -New York Review of Books 'Meticulously, fascinatingly and horrifyingly explains how eccentric American billionaires hijacked our democracy.' -Curtis Sittenfeld, The Observer 'Deeply researched and studded with detail ... Seems destined to rattle the Koch executive offices in Wichita as other investigations have not.' -Washington Post