illicit: reviews

Global Business Network Book Club (November 2005)

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy
By Peter Schwartz, cofounder and chairman of Global Business Network

There is a dark and shadowy world out there that few of us know much about. It exists in the growing and overlapping intersection of crime and terrorism, which increasingly affects the business environment and civil society. The scale of these new realities, enabled by technological and economic evolution, is vast. Counterfeit consumer products alone cost business over $600 billion every year. Yet our ignorance and naiveté about the shadow worlds of the illicit and the politically violent leave us even more vulnerable to their depredations.

It is hard to operate in parts of the planet without encountering this shadow world. And understanding where the boundaries lie between the legitimate and the illicit, the freedom fighter and the terrorist, requires cultural and historical context. Common myths, shaped by fiction and a frenzied press, pervade our views. Terrorists are particularly vulnerable to misperception. What kind of person becomes a suicide warrior? Our biases distort any hope of understanding their behavior.

This GBN Book Club takes us into a world that is hard to penetrate and sheds light on some of its darkest crevices. In Illicit , Moises Naim, the editor of Foreign Policy, explores the diverse world of smuggling.