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The Suez Crisis of 1956 was the nadir of Britain's twentieth century, the moment when the once-superpower was bullied into retreat. "Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role," said Dean Acherson, a former US secretary of state. Acheson's line has entered into the canon of great quotations: but it was wrong. Britain had already found a role. The leaders of the world just hadn't noticed it yet.

Butler to the World reveals how Britain came to assume its role as the centre of the offshore economy. Written polemically, but studded with witty references to the butlers of popular fiction, it demonstrates how so many elements of modern Britain have been put at the service of the wealthy, rather than of ordinary Britons. Because if you look at butlers, even at Jeeves once you strip away the humour, they are a pretty depressing prospect: intelligent people that rent out their talents to rich halfwits. That's us. But it doesn't have to be that way. Praise for Moneyland:

Eye-opening and essential ... Bullough has provided a model for how to tell a gripping and comprehensible story about a complex and crucial subject. You cannot understand power, wealth and poverty without knowing about Moneyland. -- Simon Kuper * New Statesman * If you want to know why international crooks and their eminently respectable financial advisors walk tall and only the little people pay taxes, this is the ideal book for you. Every politician and moneyman on the planet should read it, but they won't because it's actually about them. -- John le Carre, author of * A Legacy of Spies * Corruption undermines democracy, weakens institutions and erodes trust, it destroys lives and impoverishes millions. Moneyland starts from that truth and tells London's part of that story ... This important book shows clearly that foreign policy isn't about foreigners, it's about us. -- Tom Tugendhat, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee This is meticulously researched and engagingly told, and reveals the horror and scale of dirty money flowing around the world. The central role played by the UK and jurisdictions associated with the British family mean that every person concerned about corruption and fairness in the UK should read this book - and then campaign and act. -- Margaret Hodge, MP There are few people who know the world of illicit finance and money laundering like Oliver Bullough. He takes us on a journey through the maze of complicity and criminality that will upend all your confidence in the institutions that should be protecting us. -- Bill Browder, author of * Red Notice: How I became Putin's No. 1 Enemy * Unputdownable. Funny, tragic and explains the world. I hope it helps change it, too -- Peter Pomerantsev, author of * Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible * Jaw-dropping and deeply unsettling. Oliver Bullough provides a sobering and brilliant account of how piracy on an epic-scale is alive and well in the 21st century. A must-read. Simple as that -- Peter Frankopan, author of * The Silk Roads * A great guide to a country you can't afford to visit but which is all around you. - -- Richard Brooks, author of * Bean Counters *

Butler to the World: The book the oligarchs don't want you to read - how Britain became the servant of tycoons, tax dodgers, kleptocrats and criminals