Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth
Where the Rich Own the Truth
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Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Joe Eyre
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By:
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Tom Burgis
About this listen
'Stand by for fireworks as it hits the shelves' SUNDAY TIMES
'If Orwell were with us today, he'd be writing books like this' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE
'Breath-taking and jaw-dropping' PETER FRANKOPAN
'A true-life thriller' ANNE APPLEBAUM
From the bestselling author of Kleptopia comes a true story about Cuckooland – a world where the rich can buy everything – including the truth.
Everywhere, the powerful are making a renewed claim to the greatest prize of all: to own the truth. The power to choose what you want reality to be and impose that reality on the world.
For three years, Tom Burgis followed a lead that took him deeper and deeper into Cuckooland – the place where the rich own the truth. The trail snaked from the Kremlin to Kathmandu, Stockholm to the Steppe, from a blood-soaked town square in Uzbekistan to a royal retreat in Scotland. Burgis hunted down oligarchs, developed secret sources and traced vast sums of money flowing between multinational corporations, ex-Soviet dictators and the west’s ruling elites. And he found one man who wanted the power to bend reality to his will.
This book tells an astonishing story: a tale of secrets and lies that reveals how fragile that truth can be. Whether it’s in Kazakh torture chambers or the UK’s High Court, the lords of Cuckooland are seizing control of the truth. They decree what stories may be told about war and money and power, what we are permitted to know – and more importantly, what we are not.
From the bestselling author of Kleptopia, Cuckooland is a deeply reported work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller. It is a story of how globalisation and technological revolution have combined to imperil the foundation of free societies: that the truth belongs to the many, not the few.
©2024 Tom Burgis (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
‘No one has written a book like Cuckooland. Serious… but it is also at times very funny'
SUNDAY TIMES
‘Savagely funny… Amersi’s obscenity-laden threats against Burgis sparkle through the buoyant prose of Cuckooland. Burgis has somehow managed to make this meticulously researched, sordid tale entertaining. Written as a pacy thriller that communicates the deluded, self-important tone of its subjects, he renders Amersi as both menacing and ridiculous: preening, thin-skinned, panicky'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'The world Burgis reveals is a complex and murky one. To write about this world is to be watched, is to be researched, to be threatened by shockingly expensive lawyers'
GUARDIAN
‘Burgis is one of our finest investigative journalists, a muck-raker who can also turn a caustic phrase… Taken together, his books are chapters in a sustained, convincing story about the ways extreme wealth reshapes the nation'
NEW STATESMAN
'An amazing book… a very beautifully written account of how money works within that [Tory] party'
RORY STEWART, THE REST IS POLITICS
‘Written as a true-life thriller, Cuckooland reveals a secret world of access and influence, where inconvenient facts can be white-washed if you have the right connections and resources… A vital book for this election year’
ANNE APPLEBAUM
‘I read it in one sitting – and couldn’t put it down. Astonishing’
PETER FRANKOPAN
'Cuckooland exposes one of the very gravest dangers of our era: the way the rich and powerful try to suppress the truth and rewrite objective reality. In this lively, scathing account… fearless'
PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE
However interesting and important that may be, I was more concerned about what it says about the venality and corruptibility of British institutions? Did prince Charles really prostitute himself so cheaply, pimped by his wife’s nephew Ben Elliott? Did the Conservative Party so readily accept such large donations knowing that in at least one case he was not a legitimate donor?
It is not only sad that such behaviour goes on but also that nobody seems to challenge it. Would a different government be better? I hoe so. We need limits on how much individuals can donate to political parties. Corruption not only damages the countries where the bribes are given. It also corrupts the countries where they are spent.
Convincing argument but misses the most important targets?
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Compelling and nauseating
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Brilliant read!
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Burgis's journey is both expansive and intimate, tracing a path through diverse and often dangerous locales—from the power corridors of the Kremlin to the secretive realms of Kathmandu, and from the bloodied squares of Uzbekistan to the secluded retreats of Scottish royalty. His pursuit of the story behind "Cuckooland" reveals a complex network of oligarchs, shadowy financiers, and complicit Western elites, all woven into a narrative that challenges the reader's understanding of truth and power.
At the heart of "Cuckooland" lies a chilling revelation: the lords of this metaphorical land are not just reshaping reality to fit their whims but are also dictating the boundaries of our knowledge and understanding. The book serves as a testament to the dangers posed by the convergence of globalisation and technological advancement, threatening the democratic ideal that truth should be accessible to all, not just the privileged few.
Cuckooland is a masterful examination of the contemporary battleground over truth, told with an urgency and a flair for storytelling that makes it a must-read. It is a sobering reminder of the fragility of truth in the face of power and a compelling narrative that holds a mirror to our times.
Cakeism
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The butler service pandering to the whims of the over-monied run by the Queen's nephew, Ben Elliott, for several recent years chairman of the Conservative Party, is perhaps the most disquieting disclosure of the book. There isn't anything secret in it but it is curious that there isn't greater public awareness of such a dubious way of making money. Or maybe it's just me, and everyone else already knows how low our standards have sunk. The gangster-sized fortunes accumulated by legal but immoral plundering of countries like Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are shocking but maybe not surprising, but seeing flashy and dodgy schemes so close to the heart of power in the UK is uncomfortable.
The toilet-tongued Amersi falls somewhat short of his profile on the Amersi Foundation website as "a renowned global communications entrepreneur, philanthropist and thought leader". What we see is closer to a spiv who has accumulated a fortune by unscrupulous means and now craves limelight and public recognition. This he sees as his entitlement having paid over lots of cash to the powerful. In the current climate it's not hard to see why he could reasonably expect to achieve it.
A sobering and depressing read, but that's down to the subject and not the writing. We should be grateful that the integrity and determination shown by Tom Burgis provide a basis for hope that the situation might change. Maybe even for the better...
A compelling and anxiety-provoking story of the mess our national politics has turned into
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