Foreign Agents

How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World

De: Casey Michel

Narrado por: Joseph Dwyer

Duración: 10 h y 18 m

Resumen del Editor

A stunning investigation and indictment of a segment of the United States' foreign lobbying industry, and the threat to end democracy.

For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.

These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These foreign lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry—a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it—and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.

In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists as some of them—after decades of installing dictators and corrupting American policy—embark on their next mission: to end America’s democratic experiment, once and for all.

©2024 Casey Michel (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

Foreign Policy, Most Anticipated Books of 2024

"For years, an entire class of Americans have secretly guided American foreign policy, while aiding dictators' spread of devastation around the world. Thanks to Michel’s brilliant Foreign Agents, we finally know who they are–and what they’ve done. This is an unprecedented and shocking look at the law firms, PR specialists, consultants, and former officials who’ve helped the enemies of democracy succeed."—Lt. Col. (Ret.) Alexander S. Vindman, author of Here, Right Matters

"Tracing illicit money and influence from 1930s Nazi Germany to the Trump administration, Casey Michel shines an urgent spotlight on the shadowy world of foreign lobbying and the damage to democracy perpetrated by the multi-billion dollar influence industry that has whitewashed the tainted reputations of autocrats and oligarchs, fascists and kleptocrats. Foreign Agents is a searing polemic against the culture of American foreign lobbying with the high-stakes twists and turns of a Hollywood thriller, written by a foremost authority on the matter."—Christopher Miller, author of The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine