Book Description
America’s Bubble Economy is the first book to focus on several simultaneous financial bubbles that are interacting to temporarily boost—and ultimately threaten—the United States and world economies. Filled with expert analysis and straight talk, this book will show you how to turn the coming economic transformation into a once-in-a-lifetime wealth-building opportunity.
Customer Reviews:
Big on assertions, little on proofs or data.......2007-08-09
The authors make a common mistake of talking about numbers (like federal deficits) in absolute terms. These numbers are always big, and create an immediate feeling they must be bad. Compared to our GNP and our national return on assets, how much debt is good, and how much is bad? Unfortunately these questions are never addressed by the authors. The authors make many "self-evident" assertions, and then create scenerios based upon these assertions. Don't look to this book for involved analysis on why the assertions might be true. Buy this book if you are already convinced and want some very general ideas on how to deal with bubbles.
An "Easy Read" (repetitive and simplistic).......2007-04-25
"America's Bubble Economy" tells us what we already have heard countless times - the stock market, consumer spending, home values, the trade deficit, consumer debt, and the government deficit are all UP SHARPLY! Japan and China now hold our future in their hands!
Recommendations include 1)avoid real estate, except for personal use (why not also recommend renting?), buy gold, commodities, and Euros (won't that create new bubbles?), stash cash in short-term funds, avoid jobs in the capital sector (most have already moved to China; what about service jobs vulnerable to India?), and become employed in healthcare or transportation (what about the current slide in trucking jobs and President Bush's efforts to let Mexican truckers in?).
Yes, I do think we have serious problems - however, "America's Bubble Economy" is too simplistic.
Colladoproperties.com.......2007-03-28
There are five bubbles in the economy, and thats not including the false promises of Social security and medicare.
Its not even including the fact that we are in peak oil.
The reality is that we have Real Estate overpriced and beginning to fall towards a crash.
The dollar approaching 80, after that its a spiral downward.
Consumer Debt is at its highest in history. People are litteraly in debt to their eyeballs.
An international trade deficit with China that may well make us one of the poorest nation in the coming future.
A national Debt of 7 billion/week.
Do not ignore the warning signs.
This book will tell you how to get prepaired.
Bleak view of the US economy, and sadly, completely accurate........2007-02-15
I've read several books recently about profiting from real estate, economic theory, the future of the US economy, etc, and I am more than a little freaked out to report that this book is both the most scary of the bunch and is also panning out to be the most accurate.
I've been recommending "America's Bubble Economy" relentlessly to my friends, and I've changed my investment strategies accordingly. Now I cross my fingers, bite my nails, and hope that Wiedemer, against all common sense and logic, is overexaggerating.
Great Analysis.......2007-01-04
Great Analysis! Am not sure that I agree with all of the conclusions, only time will tell.
Book Description
"The IMF and the World Bank have integrated a large number of countries into the world economy by requiring governments to open up to global trade, investment, and capital. They have not done this out of pure economic zeal. Politics and their own rules and habits explain much of why they have presented globalization as a solution to challenges they have faced in the world economy."--from the Introduction
The greatest success of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has been as globalizers. But at whose cost? Would borrowing countries be better off without the IMF and World Bank? This book takes readers inside these institutions and the governments they work with. Ngaire Woods brilliantly decodes what they do and why they do it, using original research, extensive interviews carried out across many countries and institutions, and scholarship from the fields of economics, law, and politics.
The Globalizers focuses on both the political context of IMF and World Bank actions and their impact on the countries in which they intervene. After describing the important debates between U.S. planners and the Allies in the 1944 foundation at Bretton Woods, she analyzes understandings of their missions over the last quarter century. She traces the impact of the Bank and the Fund in the recent economic history of Mexico, of post-Soviet Russia, and in the independent states of Africa. Woods concludes by proposing a range of reforms that would make the World Bank and the IMF more effective, equitable, and just.
Customer Reviews:
Hard to read but incisive, 200 pages of tightly packed information.......2007-02-21
This book is definitely not in any way pop-nonfiction -- it is written more like a scientifical publification -- so it is tough to comprehend it at times (especially for a non-native with only average English skills). The book is highly rewarding nontheless -- the most balanced and insighting introduction of these two institutions I have read.
It studies the IMF/World Bank effect in Mexico, Russia and Africa, gives a bit of a background of the globalizers and finally comes up with actual ways in how they could be reformed.
If you don't want to be radically pro- or anti-globalization -- only know about it -- this might be the book you should get. It helps if you have some kind of a previous idea about IMF and World Bank.
Book Description
The debt crises in emerging market countries over the past decade have given rise to renewed debate about crisis prevention and resolution. In Debt Defaults and Lessons from a Decade of Crises, Federico Sturzenegger and Jeromin Zettelmeyer examine the facts, the economic theory, and the policy implications of sovereign debt crises. They present detailed case histories of the default and debt crises in seven emerging market countries between 1998 and 2005: Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Ecuador, Argentina, Moldova, and Uruguay. These accounts are framed with a comprehensive overview of the history, economics, and legal issues involved and a discussion from both domestic and international perspectives of the policy lessons that can be derived from these experiences.
Sturzenegger and Zettelmeyer examine how each crisis developed, what the subsequent restructuring encompassed, and how investors and the defaulting country fared. They discuss the new theoretical thinking on sovereign debt and the ultimate costs entailed, for both debtor countries and private creditors. The policy debate is considered first from the perspective of policymakers in emerging market countries and then in terms of international financial architecture. The authors' surveys of legal and economic issues associated with debt crises, and of the crises themselves, are the most comprehensive to be found in the literature on sovereign debt and default, and their theoretical analysis is detailed and nuanced. The book will be a valuable resource for investors as well as for scholars and policymakers.
Customer Reviews:
I didn't get this book yet. .......2007-03-23
You, Amazon, didn't keep the delivery day(20-march).
Your service disappointed me.
Book Description
Roughly once a year, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. treasury secretary and in some cases the finance ministers of other G-7 countries will get a call from the finance minister of a large emerging market economy. The emerging market finance minister will indicate that the country is rapidly running out of foreign reserves, that it has lost access to international capital markets and, perhaps, that is has lost the confidence of its own citizens. Without a rescue loan, it will be forced to devalue its currency and default either on its government debt or on loans to the country's banks that the government has guaranteed. This book looks at these situations and the options available to alleviate the problem. It argues for a policy that recognizes that every crisis is different and that different cases need to be handled within a framework that provides consistency and predictability to borrowing countries as well as those who invest in their debt.
Customer Reviews:
One of the best...........2007-02-24
I don't know where to begin with this review, but I just wanted to say this is one of the best books on the subject and anyone interested in global economics and markets should read this book.
Book Description
Written in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and within the context of a critique of a "new world order" that proclaims the death of Marx and Marxism, Jacques Derrida undertakes a reading of Marx's "spectropoetics" -- his obsession with ghosts, specters and spirits. Derrida argues that there is more than one spirit of Marx and that it is the responsibility of his heirs -- we are all heirs of Marx -- to sift through the possible legacies, the possible spirits, reaffirming one and not the other. He leads beyond the deafening disavowal of Marx today, a disavowal he sees as an attempt to exorcise Marx's ghost.
Specters of Marx represents renowned philosopher Jacques Derrida's first major work on Marx and his definitive entry into social and political philosophy.
Customer Reviews:
A few extra comments..........2007-07-09
The pro-Derrida and anti-Derrida standpoints are well represented in these reviews; however, there is a more important point that has not been made. I read this work much like Nietzsche's Zarathustra, meaning that its significance remains to be seen--for now to come. Now, take that as "post-structuralist obscurantism" all you want. I will shoot back just as Derrida did a hundred times: You have not read enough and you clearly do not understand his project.
With that being said, this is not even really a work on Marxism, historical materialism, or even "social" movements, per se. I read this work as affirming the undying desire for emancipation and uncovering the limits of the Marxist/leftist movements and how they are treated within academia. Marx is used as one example among many possible, just as he uses Fukuyama. I would also disagree with the previous reviewer and say that the more I read it, the more elucidating, exciting, and emancipatory this text became. This text is about infinite responsibility, inheritance, and creating "a new opening of event-ness."
I'll close with a quote from Jean Birmbaum who writes, "It is here that we find again the theme of transmission, of legacy, the 'politics of memory, of inheritance, and of generations' that is sought in Derrida's Specters of Marx, on the horizon of an obligation to justice and an endless responsibility before 'the ghosts of those who are not yet born or who are already dead.'"
Addressing Some Basic Misconceptions About Derrida's Work.......2007-01-17
Reading this book will help dispel (or at least nuance) two criticisms that are often addressed to Jacques Derrida's work. The first is that the brand of philosophy that he promotes under the name of deconstruction is irretrievably obscure and that it constitutes a refutation of the notion of objective truth as well as an attack on the Western canon of literary works. The second is that Derrida cultivates a radical posture that is detached from the realities of the day and unashamedly leftist, as the reference to an outmoded Marx would suggest.
Let us first address the accusation of obscurity. Nobody expects philosophy to be easy, and readers who have no experience of reading theoretical texts may have difficulties with this one. I must confess that there are times when I could not follow the author's line of reasoning, and I may have skipped a few paragraphs here and there, but on the whole I did not find this book unduly abstruse or recondite--and I consider myself an average reader, with only a distant background in modern philosophy. I will leave to the reader to judge for himself whether the puns and neologisms that are introduced in the book (hauntology, spectropolitics) or taken up from previous works (differance) are just pedantic wordplays or if on the contrary they do add value and enrich meaning. But at least one should give them a chance to speak for themselves, and place them in their own discursive context.
People often identify deconstruction with an attack on past scholarly traditions or a dismantling of literary texts--in other words, a rejection of the works of "dead white males". This is certainly not the case with Jacques Derrida. He is a scholar moulded in the classical tradition and whose commerce with the canon of Western philosophy and classic literature is steeped with respect and familiarity.
His reference to Shakespeare throughout this essay about Marx's legacy easily proves this point. Bringing together these two authors is not totally out of place: Marx evokes the Bard more than once in his work, in particular in The German Ideology. More to the point, the playwright and the revolutionary share a common interest for ghosts, allowing Derrida to explore this theme by finding echoes between Hamlet and the Communist Manifesto. In both cases everything begins with a ghost, from expecting an apparition. "A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of Communism": thus begins Marx's Manifesto. According to Derrida, this metaphor is not fortuitous: "Marx, writes Derrida, lived more than others in the frequentation of specters... He loved the figure of the ghost, he detested it, he called it to witness his contestation, he was haunted by it, harassed, besieged, obsessed by it."
Shakespeare, for one, knew how to handle ghosts. He understood that it took a scholar to bring a spirit to the stage and to extract knowledge from a ghost. "Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio," admonishes Marcellus in the first scene of Shakespeare's play. This is the sentence by which Derrida choses to close his essay, having recalled that "they are always there, specters, even if they do not exist, even if they are no longer, even if they are not yet. They give us to rethink the 'there' as soon as we open our mouths, even at a colloquium and especially when one speaks there in a foreign language."
Both the book's explicit and incipit deal with the issue of translation, a subject that Derrida revisits time and again in his work. As he notes, the epigraph from Hamlet that opens this essay, "the time is out of joint," has been rendered in various ways by French translators, referring to a time or a world that is all at once disjointed, disadjusted, disharmonic, discorded or dishonored and unjust. "This is the stroke of genius, the insignia trait of spirit, the signature of the thing 'Shakespeare': to authorize each one of the translations, to make them possible and intelligible without ever being reductible to them." According to Derrida, translation is not something that is added to a text afterwards and from the outside. A text bears within itself its own translation, it is open to layers upon layers of interpretation and its limits, where it starts and where it ends, cannot therefore be determined unequivocally.
Likewise, Derrida uses the polyphony of the word spirit, which can also mean "specter" (as do the words "Geist" in German or "esprit" in French) to construct a phenomenology of the ghost, what he calls an "hauntology" or a reflection on how the spirit makes its apparition as a phenomenon. Among other words that are drawn in for their multiplicity of meanings are the French noun "le revenant" (the one who comes back, the ghost), the German expression "es spukt" (it spooks, there are specters around) or the English verb "to conjure" (to beseech, to conspire, to raise a spirit). As Derrida demonstrates, this constellation of meaning around the word "spirit" finds echoes in the authors that Marx criticizes (Hegel, Max Stirner), the ones who criticizes Marx (Valery, Blanchot) or, surprisingly, those who don't (Freud, who also had his ghosts).
What about the accusation of radicalism and aloofness? Derrida certainly gives ammunition to those conservatives critics who consider deconstruction as being equivalent to Marxism. As he acknowledges, "deconstruction would have been impossible and unthinkable in a pre-Marxist space." For him, Marx is to be ranked among the great classics of modern thinking, perhaps alongside Nietzsche and Freud: "Upon rereading the Manifesto and a few other great works of Marx, I said to myself that I know of few texts in the philosophical tradition, perhaps none, whose lessons seemed more urgent today... It will always be a fault not to read and reread and discuss Marx. We no longer have any excuse, only alibis, for turning away from this responsibility."
Upon closer scrutiny, however, Derrida takes some distances with the Marxist dogma, pointing out that Marx himself resented being called a Marxist. He doesn't fully subscribe to "the concept of social class by means of which Marx so often determined the forces that are fighting for control of the hegemony." As he points out, Communist regimes drew the political consequences of Marx "at the cost of millions and millions of supplementary ghosts who will keep on protesting in us." He could have gone further along that line. But even though he shies away from addressing the issue squarely, Derrida reminds us that the specter of communism indeed turned half of Europe into a world of wraith, of chimeras and hallucinations. The communist specter made all reality ghostly. Marx's obsession with ghosts turned out to be prophetic, and Derrida's book allows us to reread him from that angle.
Deconstructing Deconstructionism.......2006-01-22
Cluttered phraseology, erratic prepositions, dizzying suppositions and a tendency towards compulsive terminologicalism seem to be the hallmark of Derrida's work. The deconstructionist tact in Specters of Marx has resulted in a collection of nearly incomprehensible thoughts, taking the shape of misguided, a-structural and often unintelligible sentences. The book does not seem to have a beginning, middle or end, nor does it seem to carry themes from what chapter to the next (except for the repeated allusions to spirits, ghosts, specters, haunts, spuks, etc.). With all of that being said, I know that this is Derrida's point, to deconstruct language from its privileged space that it inhabits, to disassemble text brick by brick and to break apart the philosophical mortar until there is no foundation left to build upon. However, this raises a few flags for me. From where does Derrida derive the authority, or the power to give voice to the deconstructive effort? Doesn't the process of de-privileging a text require authority from which to speak from? Does Derrida's elite position as a pol-literati allow him some privileged vantage to see things more clearly than others? Granting him that he might hold this position (for the purposes of argument) wouldn't it behoove him to make his writings more accessible, to the masses and academia alike? Considering my relative nascence to Derrida's nonlinearity, and to his verbosity, maybe I am missing the point (in fact I truly believe that I am missing the point). I will admit however, that the excessive neologisms, the confused waywardness, and the aberrant writing of Derrida may be artistic, and sometimes charming. I have found the reading of Derrida useful in that it helps me understand that writing or other texts may best be understood if they are removed from their privileged pedestal, that writing is just a representation of reality, a simulacra of simulacra which may have no meaning by itself. But at the same time, I found Specters of Marx frustrating to read. There were several times in this book where I read a sentence, or a paragraph, or a several pages and had absolutely no idea what it is I just read. If you enjoy postmodern deconstructivist literature then this book is for you; if you prefer to read something that makes some sense, I suggest you stay away!
hidden in the depths of words, nothing comes.......2004-09-25
If you come to "Spectres" expecting find some new insight, some vision to see into Marx, and the canonical texts, as "The German Ideology",Derrida cannot help you or the cause of illumination.Your eyes have grown old and weary trying to find where this light may reside,the epistemic. In fact only history itself and the correlations of whatever exists are there waiting for that, to interpret,to re-absorb to find/locate a new context, a new air to breath, or do we need to purchase that as well, as we now do with water;or as in South America today the turn to the Left away from the hardened corruption hardened with the New York Banks. But now the time from the bottom upwards can see itslef, time again will give it content; and Derrida will not be there,he cannot be there for his help, his aid is filled with contengencies, and reservations in these regards you come away from this work wondering where and what does it strike?, what resonance does it proclaim?; for long ago he(Derrida) found activism to be an end to itself,for itself although Derrida's voice for the dispossessed has seldom lent itself to the cause of Palestine.Why erect barriers?He has forgotten the face of prejudice? Yes or No?He speaks about his childhood and the prejudice he suffered, but then extend this in time, to aid the living,or do we simply forget? where Derrida can you have done this? So conceptual borders and barriers and vocal mantras are erected all the same over time, over place he didn't have although we seldom see this time in concrete form.
These were tail-end Lectures on the demise of an Ideology again the late Fifties also proclaimed an end to ideology,it is an uncomfortable word now with the demise and threat of Soviet Communism, Fukayama's neat little ode to ideology now forgotten itself. The purpose of Derrida is to create, to create concepts,fusions, fidelities, and areas where he can escape that is the line of productive value, and his language does have its illuminations and points of curiosity. It is not a place to build however,to foster ties with, it is a though secluded,yet not altogether hostile; nor does Derrida's work set a continuation that would let you see some other place certainly not within the dirty vagaries and betrayed ambience of politics.Although following ancient thought all is politics, wherever it may interface with the human spirit.We then see on this "Spectres" what is not here. We have known something is rotten in Denamrk to fill in this void with Hamlet, and what "spectre" still roams the earth is all bound to human hunger, human greed, to erecting Walls yet again, to predestine another series of hypocrisies, where again Derrida's voice fails to look. He may look but he keeps his words, his textures inside. Being outward has more definition and committment, and Derrida's work betrays him, for we only need to look at his words. In the end we are given structures, neatly persuasive, to avoid facing the lives of those dispossessed, those who cannot now breath the air freely, nor have the aid of medical service, or not knowing where I will be tommorrow with friends,in friendship with whom? Friendship is proximity, so proximity to the "spectre" cannot be found here in words.
An Amazing Work.......2001-08-12
Derrida is definately "not a good Marxist." He is not trapped in the decaying dialectic model, but works his way around, examines the processes, and allows the readers to arrive at their own conclusions. This book is not about Marx, but rather about the specters, their attendant ideological implications, and historicity. If you are looking for a political Derrida, you will not find him here.
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Debt Problems of Eastern Europe (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)
Iliana Zloch-Christy
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521335426 |
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In this book, Iliana Zloch-Christy analyzes the causes and consequences of the massive East European debt that began in the 1970s. In assessing the region's convertible currency debt problem, the author addresses five main issues: the origins of the debt; the possibility that such a debt was essential to Eastern Europe's economic development; the effects of the countries' own adjustments to the problem; the value of the aid provided by the West; and the outlook for the debt during the rest of the decade. The book analyzes the flaws of the centrally-planned economies that led to the crisis as well as the lack of effective structural adjustment. The author also covers the roles of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and looks at the potential debt consequences of resurging East-West trade.
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Asia's Debt Capital Markets: Prospects and Strategies for Development (The Milken Institute Series on Financial Innovation and Economic Growth)
Manufacturer: Springer
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Book Description
This volume comprises studies by leading research scholars in the United States and Asia on Asia’s debt capital markets. They assess the risks and opportunities, and strategies for developing these markets. The authors adopt a multidisciplinary approach, encompassing economics, finance and law, in the context of market practices for promoting well-functioning securities markets.
The motivation for the articles is the fact that eight years of post-crisis discussion has not yet resulted in sufficient actions to broaden and deepen debt capital markets. Yet the role and value of such markets for economic growth and development is undisputed. The articles in this book make an important contribution in identifying obstacles to reform as well as in proposing ways to develop debt capital markets.
Book Description
In the 1970s and 1980s the countries of Latin America dealt with their similar debt problems in very different ways -- ranging from militantly market-oriented approaches to massive state intervention in their economies -- while their political systems headed toward either democracy or authoritarianism. Applying the tools of modern political economy to a developing-country context, Jeffry Frieden analyzes the different patterns of national economic and political behavior that arose in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela. He argues that variations in official borrowing policies and responses to lending cut-offs imposed by foreign creditors are best explained not by international but by domestic factors, particularly lobbying by powerful interest groups. This book will be useful to those interested in comparative politics, international studies, development studies, and political economy more generally.
Customer Reviews:
"Modern Political Economy" in Latin America.......2001-06-05
Frieden's "Debt, Development and Democracy" is a rational-choice analysis of economic group interests (the "demand side" of political economy) in Latin America that seeks to explain widely differing political and economic outcomes in five countries who faced nearly identical external economic conditions. By holding the external financial environment (foreign lending) constant across the five cases, Frieden can explain two kinds of divergent outcomes (economic policy and political change) through his independent variable: the political interaction of economic interest groups acting rationally vis-a-vis the state to maximize their interests.
Frieden's argument rests on the assumption that foreign loans were liked a pie to be divided. When the pie was large, during the lending spree of 1965-1982, economic interest groups in each of the five countries determined the distribution of the pie based on their political competition for capital. Since these groups were acting to maximize their economic interests, Frieden analyzes these interests in order to explain their impact on the first dependent variable: economic policy during the borrowing period. He finds that the most significant factor determining interests was the nature of national labor-capital relations. In the three cases where labor-capital relations were calm (Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil) various "sectors" of the economy squabbled over the pie, resulting in interventionist economic policy and political cleavages that cut across the labor-capital divide. The winners in this battle for government largesse were the economic sectors that were strongest in two key areas: asset specificity and concentrated organization. But in the two cases where labor-capital relations were contentious, (Argentina and Chile) Frieden shows that capitalists across all sectors recognized their common interest and refrained from sectoral squabbling by forcing the state to eschew interventionism and protect the business climate by liberalizing markets.
After 1982, when the pie began to shrink, it was the nature of these established interest group/state relationships that determined Frieden's second dependent variable: each country's political response to the financial crisis. In the 3 sectoral countries, plus Argentina (where class conflict had subsided and sectoral cleavages therefore rose to prominence), the politically powerful sectors realized their common interest by joining forces to overthrow the regime or government (or the "policy orientation" in the case of one-party Mexico) that could no longer protect their economic interests. But in Chile, where class conflict still seethed, Frieden argues that the entire business community made a rational choice to maintain its pro-regime stance, feeling that they had more to fear from a resurgence of the left than they did from the government's inability to meet their economic demands. This explains the fact that Chile is the book's only case where authoritarianism survived the debt crisis.
Frieden offers two kinds of evidence to test his theory: quantitative and qualitative. The qualitative evidence, showing the behavior of interest groups vis-a-vis the state, is made up of interviews with key players in each of the five countries, plus numerous citations from other studies, both historical and contemporary, that ostensibly use qualitative data. The quantitative data is primarily made up of statistics on Frieden's key antecedent condition, foreign lending (to illustrate the similar nature of debt conditions across the five cases) and also his economic dependent variable: well-organized and asset-specific sectors pushing for state intervention in the economy (to illustrate the fact that sectoral economies spent their foreign loans in statist ways, while the two other cases spent their money in more "liberal" ways). Fewer statistics are needed for Frieden's political dependent variable, political change after the debt crisis, since most observers would agree that Chile changed much less than the other cases (although some would say that Frieden's "policy orientation" variable in Mexico is meaningless, since the PRI never lost its grip on power. But if Frieden were to admit that Mexico did not experience political change after the debt crisis, then his argument would be falsified).
Frieden makes it easy to assess the logical completeness of his rational choice argument by himself bringing up possible alternative theoretical interpretations of his data. While this is an admirable attempt at fair and open social science, it also gives us easy access to the deficiencies of his approach. Frieden himself admits that the behavior of interest groups cannot account for all changes in political economy, but then goes on to assert that "trends toward or away from democracy are largely a function of political actors' evaluation of which institutional arrangement will best serve their interests, not of structural characteristics of developing societies" (137). While this is a bold statement, it robs all other variables (international economic conditions, institutions, the state, ideology, strategic interaction, etc.) of too much of their explanatory power. To argue that economic interest groups alone can determine the nature of economic policy and the extent of political change is an overstatement of their individual capabilities, and Frieden probably knows it. Rational choice assumes too much omnipotence on the part of particular groups and individuals, and too much power to act in their collective interests. Nonetheless, Frieden's explanation is parsimonious, and sheds much light on heretofore ignored factors in the development/democracy relationship.
Book Description
Ever since the French Revolution, Madame de Pompadour's comment, "Après moi, le déluge" (after me, the deluge), has looked like a callous if accurate prophecy of the political cataclysms that began in 1789. But decades before the Bastille fell, French writers had used the phrase to describe a different kind of selfish recklessness--not toward the flood of revolution but, rather, toward the flood of public debt. In Before the Deluge, Michael Sonenscher examines these fears and the responses to them, and the result is nothing less than a new way of thinking about the intellectual origins of the French Revolution.
In this nightmare vision of the future, many prerevolutionary observers predicted that the pressures generated by modern war finance would set off a chain of debt defaults that would either destroy established political orders or cause a sudden lurch into despotic rule. Nor was it clear that constitutional government could keep this possibility at bay. Constitutional government might make public credit more secure, but public credit might undermine constitutional government itself.
Before the Deluge examines how this predicament gave rise to a widespread eighteenth-century interest in figuring out how to establish and maintain representative governments able to realize the promise of public credit while avoiding its peril. By doing so, the book throws new light on a neglected aspect of modern political thought and on the French Revolution.
Customer Reviews:
It was NOT ancient tribal hatreds.......2004-05-18
Scott Straus is a certifiable genius when it comes to genocide. His class was the most informative and life-changing course in the history of the University of Oregon. The University of Wisconsin is extremely lucky to be gaining him as a faculty member. Everyone should buy this book and support this amazing man. Not only is Straus brilliant, but he is "much sexier in person", to quote a UN official.
Before meeting Straus, everyone should know: Rwanda was NOT ancient tribal hatreds.
Scott Straus is PHENOMENAL.......2004-02-27
Let us say one thing...Scott Straus is a brilliant man. How do we know this? Scott Straus is our Professor and although we haven't read the book we have complete faith that his brilliance radiates from the work. Once we finish the monstrous amount of reading he assigned in his class we will be sure to read this book and we have no doubt we will enjoy it...and you will too.
An Enlightening Outlook.......2003-06-10
Scott Strauss and David K. Leonard marvelously delinate the African quagmire with a sense of optomism and honesty. The book boldy breaks down a myriad of preconcieved misconceptions and offers a scholarly aproach that shows the potential for a rebirth of the African continent. Many thanks to these brilliant men.
Books:
- Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong
- Be the Elephant: Build a Bigger, Better Business
- Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management
- Building an Import/Export Business, 3rd Edition
- Challenge of Third World Development, The (4th Edition)
- "China and the New World Order: How Entrepreneurship,Globalization, and Borderless Business Are Reshaping China and the World"
- China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future -- and the Challenge for America
- China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future -- and the Challenge for America
- Chinese Business Etiquette: A Guide to Protocol, Manners, and Culture in the People's Republic of China (A Revised and Updated Edition of "Dealing with the Chinese")
- Contested Symmetries and Other Predicaments in Architecture
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children
- Burpee : The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener : A Guide to Growing Your Garden Organically
- Screen World Volume 56: 2005 Paperback Edition
- The Art of Public Speaking with Free Student APS CDs 3.0, PowerWeb, and Topic Finder
- The Mammoth Book of Sudoku: 400 New Puzzles - The Biggest and Best Collection of Sudoku Ever
- Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
- Wild About Babies: What the Animals Teach Us About Parenting
- Peachtree Complete Accounting Workbook: Accounting Principles, Seventh Edition
- Principles of Accounting Math Use P Set
- The scorpion god;: Three short novels
Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (Lynn Sonberg Books)
Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes
The Great Bust Ahead: The Greatest Depression in American and UK History is Just Several Short Years Away. This is your Concise Reference Guide to Understanding Why and How Best to Survive It
The Second Great Depression
The Coming Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It: Make a Fortune by Investing in Gold and Other Hard Assets
