The Yes Men: The True Story of the End of the World Trade Organization

This is the companion book to The Yes Men, a United Artists movie that came out in 2004. It follows two anti-corporate activist-pranksters as they impersonate the World Trade Organization on TV and at business conferences around the world.

The story begins with Andy and Mike setting up a website that looks just like that of the World Trade Organization. Some visitors don't notice the site is a fake, and send e-mail invitations meant for the real WTO. Mike and Andy play along with the ruse and soon find themselves attending important functions as WTO -representatives.

Delighted to speak as the organization they oppose, Andy and Mike don thrift-store suits and set out to shock their unwitting audiences with darkly comic satires on global free trade. Weirdly, the experts don't notice the joke and seem to agree with every terrible idea the two can come up with. Exhausted by their failed attempts to shock, Mike and Andy change their strategy completely, and take a whole new approach for one final lecture.

The book is lavishly illustrated in full color throughout, featuring photographs of Mike and Andy getting deeper and deeper into their assumed identities. Also liberally dispensed are many of the hilarious e-mail exchanges between the Yes Men and various officials and individuals around the world who have asked their advice on issues of world trade.

The Yes Men are global authorities on "Identity Correction," the art of impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Their high-profile targets have included George Bush, who responded to their imposture by saying "there ought to be limits to freedom" and The World Trade Organization, who called them "deplorable." The Yes Men currently have thousands of job openings.