{"product_id":"anansis-gold","title":"Anansi's Gold","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eCatch Me if You Can\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eComing to America\u003c\/i\u003e in this epic tale of one of the greatest scammers of all time.\"-NPR\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eShortlisted for the Mark Lynton History Prize * \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book of the Year * A \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, NPR, \u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Economist, \u003c\/i\u003eTIME, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSlate, \u003c\/i\u003eand WIRED Best Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eInto 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.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eAnansi's Gold\u003c\/i\u003e, 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Jhalak Prize * Winner of the Plutarch Award for Biography \u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50749361717480,"sku":"9781635574739","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/9539\/3512\/files\/imageloader_536636ea-9848-4bbf-aa6e-05d1f42de122.jpg?v=1790216181","url":"https:\/\/kuumba-47muwsn1.myshopify.com\/products\/anansis-gold","provider":"Kuumba","version":"1.0","type":"link"}