Publisher Description
The wildest story in the world these days is not fiction; it’s what’s really happening all around us as the world’s global economy has gone into freefall. How did we get here? What does it all mean? How could so many smart people be so dumb and believe their own hype?
Accessibly, cleverly, and with mordant humor, journalist John Lanchester trots the globe in search of the answers to these questions—to Iceland, the scene of catastrophic bank collapse; to Hong Kong, the city of his birth built at the altar of free-market capitalism; to the high-stakes leveraging of Wall Street; and to the tragedy of lost homes in small-town America. And in his capable hands, we see and understand what went wrong and why.
Lanchester believes that the current crisis gives us an opportunity to bring about much-needed change and that a stronger and more compassionate system can emerge from the wreckage.
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“This book gives us a look backward at the causes of the situation the United States, Britain and Europe find themselves. It is complicated and frightening. Communism failed. Is pure market capitalism far behind? My take from the book is that the people who got us into the situation are still in the driver’s seat and still doing the same types of things that got us into this – Jamie Dimon and Chase Bank is just one for instance.”
—
Sandra (4 out of 5 stars)
