Before taking up the pen for the The Observer and Guardian newspapers, Los Angeles-born Palast traveled the globe as expert investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering.  For the Chugach Natives of Alaska, he unearthed the doctored safety records that proved the Exxon Valdez disaster was an inevitability, not an accident.  In Chicago, he bargained contracts for the United Steelworkers Union in Chicago, in Peru he helped found a consumer rights organization. Years ago, he guided the formation of an alliance linking Enron workers in Brazil and India.  In 1988, Palast directed the government's investigation of a US nuclear plant builder in which the jury awarded the largest racketeering penalty in US history.

Last summer, the United Nations International Labour Organisation (Geneva) issued his book, Democracy and Regulation, based on his lectures at Cambridge University and University of Sao Paulo.

Reviewed books: