Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth

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 APPLEBAUMFrom 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.