Business as Usual: The Roots of the Global Financial Meltdown (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780814772782)

Situates the current crisis in the historical trajectory of the capitalist world-system, showing how the crisis was made possible not only by neoliberal financial reforms but by a massive turn away from manufacturing things of value towards seeking profit from financial exchange and credit. Much more basic than the result of a few financial traders cheating the system, this is a potential historical turning point. In original essays, the contributors establish why the system was ripe for crisis of the past, and yet why this meltdown was different. The volume concludes by asking whether as deep as the crisis is, it may contain seeds of a new global economy, what role the US will play, and whether China or other countries will rise to global leadership.

Contributors include: Giovanni Arrighi, Gopal Balakrishnan, Manuel Castells, Daniel Chirot, Fernando Coronil, Nancy Fraser, James K. Galbraith, David Harvey, Caglar Keyder, Beverly J. Silver, and Immanuel Wallerstein.

The three volumes can purchased individually or as a set.

Business as Usual is the first part of a trilogy comprised of the first three books in the Possible Future series.

Volume 1: Business as Usual
Volume 2: The Deepening Crisis
Volume 3: Aftermath

The three volumes are linked by a common introduction and can be purchased individually or as a set.

Author: Craig Calhoun
ISBN-10: 0814772781
ISBN-13: 9780814772782
Publisher: New York University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/01/2011
Pages: 312
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 8.95h x 6.08w x 0.72d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 01/01/2012