100 books like Fraud of the Century

Throughout the early 20th century, General Smedley Butler was the go-to commander for overthrowing other countries' governments on behalf of US interests. So, when American fascists conspired to oust then-recently elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, they recruited Butler to lead their coup attempt. The fascists’ error: they failed to take Butler’s remorse seriously when, in a 1931 speech, he lamented his career as a "…high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and the bankers." The Plot to Seize The White House details how Butler brought the conspiracy down.

I was reminded as I read that there always were—and will be—powerful people eager to topple the barriers democracy puts in their way. But it’s also a reminder that, as in the 2020 election, principled people, in the right positions, make all the difference. 

Most people fall into one of two categories: those who firmly believe Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in the John F. Kennedy assassination, and those who don't. Before The Devil's Chessboard, lots of researchers examined the Warren Commission's own files, found solid evidence of a conspiracy, and wrote books presenting their findings. Their point-by-point analyses blew apart the official story, but few readers bothered to slog through their dense prose.

I was a fence-sitter until I read Talbot's book. He skillfully disposes of the official story as part of a larger narrative about an out-of-control, fascist-riddled CIA more powerful than the elected government. Because of Talbot’s storytelling flair, missing from earlier researcher-authors' dry dissertations, his book is able to convert fence-sitters and perhaps even a few non-believers. 

It’s quite a trick to overthrow a government without firing a shot. It’s an even better trick to do it without most people noticing what you’ve done. Dark Money shows how a cadre of American oligarchs, who believed the US had gone too far in reining in people like them, poured barrels of cash into undermining the average American’s economic, labor, and civil rights progress. They created think tanks. They bankrolled TV pundits. They funded departments at top universities—and micro-managed the curriculum—intent on influencing new generations of politicians, economists, and judges. In the end, they completely reshaped American thought and jurisprudence.

Ever wonder how the US of FDR and JFK could have taken such a sharp turn to the extreme right? I recommend you read Dark Money.

The Steal documents what happened in the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and January 6th in swing states that Biden won, where Trump persuaded local loyalists that the election had been rigged. Avid Trump supporters embraced every wild conspiracy theory Trump World tossed their way—imagining minor glitches to be bulletproof evidence of massive fraud. 

As the author of another narrative about the collateral damage wrought by purveyors of the Big Lie, I had obvious reasons to be drawn to The Steal. It deftly see-saws between besieged election workers and officials trying to do their jobs in the face of unrelenting pressure, and those who—truth, law, and logic be damned—applied that pressure. The Steal fascinates, both as a commentary on human nature and a ground-level account of an attempted coup.  

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. 

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. 

Though this book was released a few months before the Capitol attack, it provides important details on key trends and events that many missed leading up to January 6. Seth Abramson, a former criminal defense attorney and journalism professor, shows how Trump not only tried to entice foreign leaders of Ukraine to discredit Joe Biden, but conspired with officials in China, Russia, Hungary, and other nations to help him win re-election. Abramson has continued to write ground-breaking articles on his Substack blog, Proof, such as how Trump allegedly worked with planners of Operation Occupy the Capitol to use the occupation to lobby state legislators to change election results.

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.

Michela Wrong’s story centres on one country, Kenya, and one person, but it resonates throughout the continent and far beyond it – everywhere, where corruption is as systemic, as it is in Kenya. John Githongo, a journalist who fought corruption, was appointed to head an anti–corruption unit by a new president. As in every decent detective novel, involving corruption, the hero discovers that the roots lead to the very top, finds the proof and, after many adventures, publicizes it. Only this is not a novel, though it certainly reads like one. Wrong’s hero is a real person, who did what he did and who suffered for it. This is a story of personal honesty, decency, and courage. But this is also an inside story of how many African societies work.