Boomerang
Travels in the New Third World
28 September 2011
Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, Singapore and Malaysia, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Description
As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.
Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.
Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.
Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.
Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.
Also By: Michael Lewis 
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
Hardback, 2023
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
Paperback, 2022
New York Times Bestseller
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
Hardback, 2021
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
E Book, 2021
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.
The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy
Paperback, 2019
The New York Times Bestseller, with a new afterword
"[Michael Lewis’s] most ambitious and important book." —Joe Klein, New York Times
