Empires of Profit - Daniel Litvin

“...[a] thoughtful, intensively researched and deeply impressive book”–Financial Times

“[Litvin] has achieved an improbable feat ... Engagingly written as well as original in approach, “Empires of Profit” is warmly recommended.”–The Economist

“... greed and benevolence, ruthlessness and naivet...marks the history of multinational involvement in poor countries, argues [Litvin] in his riveting book”–New York Times

“...hair-raising accounts of greed, megalomania, conspiracy, coups...Best take a look, because the new giants are not going away.”–The Guardian

“This is an important book, of use both as a primer for corporate bosses and ammunition for their enemies. And it’s fun to read.”–New Scientist

Daniel Litvin, the founder and director of Critical Resource, is a leading expert on the growing social and political risks facing global companies today. In this series of gripping and dramatic stories, he takes a compelling historical view of the tense relationship between big corporations and the developing countries in which they invest. He ranges from the British East India Company’s violent imperial exploits through to the expulsion of western oil firms from the Middle East in the 1960s and 1970s to the controversies surrounding today’s giants such as Shell in Nigeria and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in China and India.

As the pace of globalisation becomes faster than ever before, and businesses flock to countries with unfamiliar values and cultures, can western head offices get it right? Can they avoid the uprisings and backlash that previous multinationals suffered? Can they truly become valued by local communities or will there always be resentment? Is globalisation going to work?

Litvin’s exploration of the culture clash triggered by corporate expansion in the developing world is both a study of the past and a lesson for the future.