100 books like Proof of Corruption

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin was not only inside the Capitol on January 6 when it was stormed, he had just tragically buried his 25-year-old son the previous day. His book, a cathartic exercise for himself and a shocked nation, drills down to the heart of what happened, showing in graphic detail how violent and terrifying that day was from an insider’s perspective. 

As a former constitutional law professor at American University who later became a Trump impeachment manager and member of the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the attack, Raskin eloquently explains the underlying events and issues that led to the violent breach. He argues forcefully why the former president himself must be held accountable before the country can begin a crucial, difficult healing process.

Okay! I know this isn’t a romance. However, this book did keep me up at night. I couldn’t put it down.

The reason? Fear. It’s shocking to read about going through the last few years and seeing how things played out through another lens. Because, you know you saw the same thing. But Mr. Karl was right there. Up close and personal.

It’s chilling to read how perilous things were, and frankly, still are. This is a very good book.

Of the three books written by legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward about the Trump Presidency (Fear, Rage, Peril), I thought Peril was the one that best demonstrated the danger that Trump’s style of populism, his authoritarian tendencies, and his post-truth rhetoric presented to the survival of liberal democracy in the US.

I was fascinated by the insider’s look Woodward offered; he makes you feel like you are in the room in Washington DC, when some of the most momentous developments in American politics in recent times unfold, from the Covid-19 pandemic, to the Black Lives Matter protests, and the January 6th riot at the Capitol—great and scary book.    

This book by two Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters contains even more behind-the-scenes looks than most at what happened during Donald Trump’s last year in the White House. Leonnig, a national investigative reporter, and Rucker, senior Washington correspondent, details nuggets such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham telling Trump a couple of days before January 6 that Pence couldn’t change the result and pointing out how Al Gore hadn’t tried doing that when he actually won the popular vote - but lost the Electoral College - in 2000. Trump replied that Gore wasn’t smart enough to pull such a move.

The authors journeyed to Mar-a-Lago a few months after the Capitol attack for a surreal interview with the former president. That alone is worth the read.

I’m fascinated by the possibilities presented by post-nation futures. Infomocracy looks at a future where ‘centenals’—groups of 100,000 people without historic nationalist borders—elect an international corporate-affiliated body to govern the world.

High-stakes political intrigue fuels the biggest election in a century as multiple factions battle it out to seize power through the vehicle of futuristic democracy. To me, the highlight of this novel is its exploration of democracy—it’s peppered with paradoxical and intense arguments that are rewarding to engage with, and enhance the richness of its world. 

Accusations of ballot fraud, election challenges, dueling slates of electors, threats of political violence—even a new civil war. It sounds eerily like the 2020 presidential election, but it happened in 1876. The legitimate winner that year was Democrat Samuel Tilden. His rival, Rutherford B. Hayes, who eventually ascended to the presidency, and Tilden both, according to Morris, went to bed on election night, believing Tilden was the winner. The fraud, this time, was initiated, not by the candidate himself, but by Republican operatives behind closed doors who worked to propel Hayes to the top, in exchange for an end to Reconstruction—which led inexorably to the Jim Crow era. 

The bitter battle left Tilden and the country with grievous losses. The country is still recovering.

Jeffrey Epstein was a financial wizard who also served as an agent for other wealthy patrons.

With his partner Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the UK media mogul and Mossad agent Robert Maxwell, Epstein followed in the footsteps of previous organizers of extensive blackmail operations such as Roy Cohn, lawyer for communist-hunting US Senator Joe McCarthy and eventually, political mentor of Donald Trump.

This book provides a comprehensive, well-documented Who's Who of all others involved in the grey zone between great wealth, crime, and intelligence.

A librarian friend recommended Lesley Muir’s explosive exposé of the scandal and corruption that underpinned the development of Sydney’s transport networks in the late Nineteenth Century. Spanning the decades immediately preceding Australia’s Federation, Shady Acres uncovers, as Elizabeth Farrelly says in her introduction, "the perennial crookedness of Sydney’s planning." As I immersed myself in 1890s Sydney for my own novel – and with my story and characters focussed on these very men who sat in the New South Wales’  parliament - I found the book provided the sort of rich vein of detail that allowed me to really bring this time and these people to life. 

Everyone knows China has experienced amazingly long and rapid development, but also that in an autocratic country with plenty of laws but no rule of law, corruption is rife. Normally, deeply corrupt countries don’t ‘make it’, but China has, and I found Yuen Yuen Ang’s book an illuminating guide to just how and why a particular form of corruption in China has worked to its advantage. 

She calls this ‘access money’ as opposed to other forms of corruption such as embezzlement, petty bribery, extortion, and thuggery. She shows how to access money while producing perverse and risky outcomes, has actually nurtured investment and growth. It’s an interesting perspective on China’s long economic march since the 1980s, though she concludes that even this form of corruption is now generating problems and changes that will most likely end up undermining Xi Jinping’s China.

This book describes in fascinating detail several episodes of crony capitalism in contemporary India. The author focuses on the intimate nexus between big business and politics that shapes economic policies and covertly funds elections, often to the detriment of the interests of underprivileged sections of society. Drawing on his experience as an investigative journalist, Josy Joseph delineates corporate rivalries, the activities of shady lobbyists and recounts financial scandals. A riveting read.