Sarah Chayes is an author who bridges global issues with daily life. Her writing explores how power and corruption impact individuals and communities. Chayes offers a unique perspective on the complexities of the modern world, often drawing from extensive experience abroad. Readers will appreciate her ability to illuminate deeper connections and moral quandaries.
Corruption's pervasive influence in America is meticulously examined, tracing its roots from the Gilded Age's industrial magnates through significant historical events like the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression. The narrative highlights the detrimental impact of deregulation and political machinations on the middle class and unions. It critiques the Clinton administration's favoritism and Trump's extensive corrupt network, illustrating how systemic corruption undermines democracy and shapes governance, often escaping scrutiny from the privileged elite.
America is corrupted, and everybody knows it. In this blistering book, Sarah Chayes brings years of experience analysing corruption in the developing world to probing her home country, finding that the model fits too closely for comfort. US kleptocratic networks have bent the main government powers to serve their own interests, not the citizens', with dizzying results--from egregious Supreme Court decisions to the pillaging of the defence budget, public land grabs to Big Pharma's capture of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the repeated financial meltdowns of the past forty years.Chayes places America's acute corruption within a broad historical context, going back to the invention of money itself. She shows that corruption today, far from just acts committed by disreputable individuals to line their pockets, is the standard mode of operation for sophisticated networks crossing political, ideological and national boundaries. Even the Trump administration's venality is more a symptom of a widespread trend than an aberration.When corruption takes hold, the results are devastating: social upheaval, terror and extremism, mass migration and environmental devastation. Searching and unflinching, Everybody Knows helps readers everywhere envision ways to pull in the reins on a rigged system, through individual, collective and political action.
Sarah Chayes explores Afghanistan's complex power dynamics after the War on Terror media frenzy subsides. Through her six years in the region, she engages with tribal leaders, warlords, insurgents, and opium traders, uncovering the intricacies of this strategically vital area during a critical historical period.
