John Perkins (b. January 28, 1945 in Hanover, New Hampshire) is an activist and author. His best known book is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004), an insider's account of the exploitation or neo-colonization of Third World countries by what Perkins describes as a cabal of corporations, banks, and the United States government. His 2007 book, The Secret History of the American Empire, makes further claims about the negative impact of global corporations on the economies and ecologies of poor countries, as well as offering suggestions for making corporations behave more like good citizens.

Perkins has also written an introduction to the 2007 book A Game as Old as Empire: the Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption (edited by Steven Hiatt), a collection of accounts from investigators, journalists and other economic hitmen. The book offers further evidence of economic hit men and rebuts some of the criticism that Perkin's book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man received.

Perkins attended Tilton School for high school, Middlebury College, and Boston University School of Management during the 1960s. He spent the 1970s working for the consulting firm Chas. T. Main, where he was employed after first being screened by the National Security Agency (NSA) and subsequently hired by Einar Greve, a member of the Firm (and alleged NSA liaison, a claim which Greve has denied). Perkins was trained early in his career by a beautiful, older woman who was armed with the psychological profile gathered about him by the NSA after many days of pre-employment screening, as one of many "economic hit men" advancing the cause of corporate hegemony.

As a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, Perkins says that he "was an 'economic hit man' for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinational corporations cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.

After several years struggling internally over the role he was playing in crippling foreign economies, he quit his consulting job. In the 1980s Perkins founded and directed a successful independent energy company. In the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Perkins states that he suspects the success of his company was due to 'coincidences' orchestrated by those appreciative of his silence about the work he did as an economic hit man. He then sold the energy company in the late 1980s. Since then he has been heavily involved with non-profit organizations in Ecuador and around the world. He continues this work today, in addition to his writing. One of his organizations, Dream Change, is dedicated to shifting consciousness and promoting sustainable lifestyles for the individual and global community.

John Perkins and his role as Economic Hitman (EHM) is the main theme in part II of the movie Zeitgeist: Addendum, released October 2008. He also appears in the documentary movie "Let's make money" (in german) by the Austrian director Erwin Wagenhofer, released October 2008.

In this shocking memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins tells of his own inner journey from willing servant of empire to impassioned advocate for the rights of oppressed people. Covertly recruited by the United States National Security Agency and on the payroll of an international consulting firm, he traveled the world—to Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other strategically important countries. His job was to implement policies that promoted the interests of the U.S. corporatocracy (a coalition of government, banks, and corporations) while professing to alleviate poverty—policies that alienated many nations and ultimately led to September 11 and growing anti-Americanism. Within a few weeks of its release , Confessions of an Economic Hit Man landed onThe New York Times Bestseller List, then 19 other bestseller lists including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. The author has been interviewed repeatedly on national radio and television shows, including Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, CSPAN's Book TV, and PBS' Now with David Brancaccio. And now the book is being published in 9 languages around the world. According to John Perkins, "It is accomplishing an important objective in inspiring people to think and talk and to know that we can change the world."

“[A] gripping tell-all book….”

--Rocky Mountain News “John Perkins' story is so astonishing it defies belief…. imagine the conceptual love child of James Bond and Milton Friedman.”

--Boston Herald

“…compulsively readable and revealing.… Resisting threats and bribes, Perkins persisted and wrote his well-documented confessional. He has produced an unflinching and forceful insider’s look at how the U.S. government, multinational ‘aid’ organizations and corporations are following a dangerous path in their pursuit of oil

and other resources.”

--Winnipeg Free Press