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Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

Yepoka Yeebo

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Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

by Yepoka Yeebo
Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

A globe-spanning scam shaped by colonial lies

This is perfect if you love true crime with big historical stakes. It reads like an unbelievable con-artist thriller, but what really makes it linger is how the fraud grows out of postcolonial chaos, Cold War meddling, and greed on every side. Readers who enjoy sharp investigative storytelling will appreciate how it turns a wild swindle into something much deeper and more unsettling.

  • Mark Lynton History Prize Nominee (2024)
  • Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee for Historical Nonfiction (2024)
  • Jhalak Prize (2024)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

by Yepoka Yeebo
Condition guide

Book Condition Guide

Books in Like New Condition

This book may contain very minor cosmetic defects, but it is in pristine condition. There should be no yellowing, no foxing, no water damage, and no annotations of any kind on the cover and the pages. For paperbacks, there should not be any crease marks on the spine. This book is good as new — lucky you!

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

Books in Very Good Condition

This book has been used, but it is still in a clean condition. There should be no foxing or annotations of any kind on the inner pages, but a sparse amount may be present on the cover, title pages, or outside edges of the book. There should be no water damage of any kind. For paperbacks, there may be light crease marks on the spine.

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

Books in Good Condition

We do our best to ensure the quality of our books, but there is no escaping the wear and tear that comes with time. Slight foxing and some annotations may be present on the pages and the cover. There should be no water damage of any kind. For paperbacks, there may be several crease marks on the spine.

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

Books in Well Read Condition

This is a well-read book, which means that the previous owner probably really enjoyed it! The cover and pages may include moderate foxing and annotations, but the text is not obscured and still readable. Moderate cosmetic defects and minor water damage may be present on the edges of the book. For paperbacks, there may be multiple crease marks on the spine.

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

 

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ISBN: 9781635574739
Author: Yepoka Yeebo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Date of Publication: 2023-08-01
Format: Hardcover
Related Collections: Economics, History, Politics, Biographies & Memoirs
Related Topics: History, Biography Memoir, Biography, World History, Money, Historical, Finance, Politics
Goodreads rating: 3.77
(rated by 1424 readers)

Description

The astounding, never-before-told story of how an audacious Ghanaian con artist pulled off one of the 20th century’s longest-running and most spectacular frauds. When Ghana won its independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to snatch any assets that colonialism hadn’t already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty in Ghana and trained in the United States, John Ackah Blay-Miezah declared himself custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You, too, could claim a piece—if only you would “invest” in Blay-Miezah’s fictitious efforts to release the equally fictitious fund. Over the 1970s and ’80s, he and his accomplices—including Ghanaian state officials and Nixon’s former attorney general—scammed hundreds of millions of dollars out of thousands of believers. Blay-Miezah lived in luxury, deceiving Philadelphia lawyers, London financiers, and Seoul businessmen alike, all while eluding his FBI pursuers. American prosecutors called his scam “one of the most fascinating—and lucrative—in modern history.” In Anansi’s Gold, Yepoka Yeebo chases Blay-Miezah’s ever-wilder trail and discovers, at long last, what really happened to Ghana’s missing wealth. She unfolds a riveting account of Cold War entanglements, international finance, and postcolonial betrayal, revealing how what we call “history” writes itself into being, one lie at a time.
 

A globe-spanning scam shaped by colonial lies

This is perfect if you love true crime with big historical stakes. It reads like an unbelievable con-artist thriller, but what really makes it linger is how the fraud grows out of postcolonial chaos, Cold War meddling, and greed on every side. Readers who enjoy sharp investigative storytelling will appreciate how it turns a wild swindle into something much deeper and more unsettling.

  • Mark Lynton History Prize Nominee (2024)
  • Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee for Historical Nonfiction (2024)
  • Jhalak Prize (2024)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

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