Cross of Gold
Corruption in America's Past, Present, and Precarious Future and What It Means for Our Democratic Society

From the prizewinning journalist, internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world, author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security ("I can't imagine a more important book for our time," Sebastian Junger; "Required reading" Tom Friedman; "compelling, fascinating . . . a call to action," Huffington Post), a major, unflinching book that looks homeward to America exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future.

Now, bringing to bear all of her knowledge, grasp, sense of history and observation, Chayes writes in Cross of Gold, that the US is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, as Chayes sees it, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members.

From the titans of America's Gilded Age (Carnegie, Rockefeller, JP Morgan, et al.); to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Depression and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth, and the Kennedy presidency, to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution, undermining the middle class; the unions; the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment, to Trump's shocking hydra-headed network of corruption, systematically undoing our constitution and our laws, Chayes shows how corrupt systems are organized, how they enforce the rules so their crimes are covered legally; how they are overlooked and downplayed--shrugged off with a roll of the eyes--by the richer and better-educated, how they become an overt principle determining the shape of our government, affecting all levels of society.