Meet Blackwater USA, the private army that the US government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. Its contacts run from military and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House; it has a military base, a fleet of aircraft and 20,000 troops, but since September 2007 the firm has been hit by a series of scandals that, far from damaging the company, have led to an unprecedented period of expansion. This revised and updated edition includes Scahill's continued investigative work into one of the outrages of our time: the privatisation of war.

"Meticulously researched and fascinating ... Scahill does a fine job" - Sunday Times

"Scahill deserves commendation." - New Statesman

"An explosive piece of investigative journalism" - Shortlist

"A powerful argument against the privatisation of war... exemplary... If the job of writing about "the rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army" seems mightily ambitious, it has been undertaken by just the right person... he's the sort of writer who sets out the evidence and lets us make up our own minds" - Big Issue

"Revelatory" - Guardian

"An exhaustively well-researched expose" - Herald

"[A] revealing study" - Sunday Tribune