Illicit by Moises Naim (2005, Hardcover)

Pick up a newspaper anywhere, any day, and you will find news about illegal migrants (and near slaves), drug busts, smuggled weapons, laundered money or counterfeit goods. In the past decade, the global trade in these commodities has metastasized, as the financial, political and technological resources deployed by the traders has increased by unfathomable orders of magnitude. These new "wars of globalization" pit hamstrung government bureaucracies against agile, well-financed, politically powerful and ever-shifting networks of highly dedicated individuals. Religious and political zeal drive terrorists, but it turns out that simple profit is no less a motivator for murder, mayhem, and international disorder.

ILLICIT is the first book to grapple with the challenge of this disturbing underground. Expanded from a high-impact cover story in Foreign Policy, it shows how we got to this dangerous point -- including the interconnections between these illegal enterprises and the way they endlessly recombine to breed new lines of business, feed off political instability, foster violence, enable terrorists and even "own" governments. From pirated films and CDs to weapons of mass destruction, the author reveals the inner workings of these networks and shows the new realities that make them so successful and hard -- if still necessary -- to defeat.

Like Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, ILLICIT offers a fresh, lively and urgent vision of a world in the midst of breakneck change. It will alter the way its readers understand the world and ignite the debate at the highest levels.