Wider reading
Books that are not about illicit trade but that we keep recommending anyway, because of what they teach about places, people or power.
Books that are not about illicit trade but that we keep recommending anyway, because of what they teach about places, people or power.
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- Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong
Mathews, Gordon. 2011. Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226510200. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226510217.001.0001.
Why read it: An ethnography of one building in Hong Kong where traders from South Asia and Africa buy phones and clothes to carry home. It is the best short account we know of low-end globalisation, the informal trade that moves goods across the Global South. Who it is for: anyone interested in how low-end globalisation actually works. - Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
Hao, Karen. 2025. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Penguin Press. ISBN 9780593657508.
Why read it: A reporter’s account of OpenAI and the race for AI dominance, including the labour in the Global South and the environmental cost behind the products. Useful background for anyone using these tools in intelligence work, and a reminder of where the power sits. Who it is for: anyone using AI tools at work who wants to know who built them and at what cost. - The Shadow of the Sun
Kapuściński, Ryszard. (1998) 2002. The Shadow of the Sun. Translated by Klara Glowczewska. Vintage. ISBN 9780679779070.
Why read it: Forty years of reporting from across Africa, from independence to the 1990s, by a Polish correspondent who travelled poor and listened. It teaches how to see a place before you analyse it. Who it is for: anyone heading to Africa for work for the first time. - Rhetoric and Governance under Trump: Proclamations from the Bullshit Pulpit
Kaussler, Bernd, Lars J. Kristiansen, and Jeffrey Delbert. 2020. Rhetoric and Governance under Trump: Proclamations from the Bullshit Pulpit. Lexington Books. ISBN 9781498594851.
Why read it: An academic study of how rhetoric shaped governance during the first Trump administration, and what it did to institutions. We include it because the language of power is part of the environment analysts report on. Who it is for: readers interested in how political language shapes institutions.
Last checked 2026-10-13.