Bøger af Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

"A season of unrest looms ahead, and The Hidden Globe lays out the unvarnished truth in a luminous feat of reportage.”—Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star TribuneBorders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist’s riveting account exposes a parallel universe that has become a haven for the rich and powerful.  A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of this hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed their only commodity: bodies, in the form of mercenary fighters. Over time, economists, theorists, statesmen, and consultants evolved ever more sophisticated ways of exporting and exploiting statelessness, in the form of free trade zones, flags of convenience, offshore detention centers, charter cities controlled by foreign corporations, and even into outer space. By mapping this countergeography, which decides who wins and who loses in the new global order—and helping us to see how it might be otherwise—The Hidden Globe fascinates, enrages, and inspires.

"Borders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist's riveting account exposes a parallel universe exempt from the laws of the land, and how the wealthy and powerful benefit from it. The map of the globe depicts the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that bestow and restrict the rights of the citizens and entities within their borders. For wealthy individuals and corporations, however, borders are porous, and the globe is pockmarked with thousands of special zones that exist beyond any nation's control, for their benefit. And for those at the opposite end of privilege, the map fails to prevent exploitation by foreign powers, or willfully creates cracks where refugees fleeing war and hardship can be captured and kept in stateless limbo indefinitely. In this fast-paced and fascinating narrative, Atossa Abrahamian explores this parallel universe. Starting in thirteenth-century Switzerland, where a confederation of poor cantons marketed the commodity they had - bodies, in the form of mercenaries - she stalks the legacy of statelessness around world, from an Emirati-owned port in Somalia to the new charter cities, semi-autonomous city-states in poor countries like Honduras that are controlled by foreign governments or multinational corporations, to Luxembourg, which wants to use its tiny perch to send capitalism into outer space via asteroid mining. Along the way, we meet the shadowy CEOs, visionary statesmen, eccentric theorists, prize-winning economists, and alarming ideologues who are the masterminds of this parallel order. By mapping the hidden geography that increasingly determines who wins and who loses in the new global order - and how it might be otherwise - The Hidden Globe fascinates, enrages, and inspires"--

The cosmopolites are literally "e;citizens of the world,"e; from the Greek word kosmos, meaning "e;world,"e; and polites, or "e;citizen."e; Garry Davis, aka World Citizen No. 1, and creator of the World Passport, was a former Broadway actor and World War II bomber pilot who renounced his American citizenship in 1948 as a form of protest against nationalism, sovereign borders, and war. Today there are cosmopolites of all stripes, rich or poor, intentional or unwitting, from 1-percenters who own five passports thanks to tax-havens to the Bidoon, the stateless people of countries like the United Arab Emirates. Journalist Atossa Abrahamian, herself a cosmopolite, travels around the globe to meet the people who have come to embody an increasingly fluid, borderless world.Along the way you are introduced to a colorful cast of characters, including passport-burning atheist hackers, the new Knights of Malta, California libertarian "e;seasteaders,"e; who are residents of floating city-states, Bidoons, who have been forced to be citizens of the island nation Comoros, entrepreneurs in the business of buying and selling passports, cosmopolites who live on a luxury cruise ship called The World, and shady businessmen with ties to Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad.