Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth

Everywhere, the powerful are staking their claim to the ultimate prize: the ability to own the truth—the power to define reality and impose it on the world.

For three years, Tom Burgis followed a trail that led him deep into “Cuckooland,” the realm where the rich control truth. His investigation spanned from the Kremlin to Kathmandu, Stockholm to the Steppe, from a blood-soaked square in Uzbekistan to a royal retreat in Scotland. Along the way, Burgis tracked oligarchs, cultivated secret sources, traced vast flows of money between multinational corporations, ex-Soviet dictators, and the West’s elites—and uncovered one man determined to bend reality to his will.