13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown

How did we get into this mess? Rather than focusing on subprime lending and the immediate past, Johnson and Kwak stretch further back into American history, setting the stage with chapters on how banking was conducted in the early republic. They also explore recent financial meltdowns in South Korea, Japan, and Russia, finding a pattern: disaster always ensues after governments combine de facto economic oligarchy with deregulation of financial markets. Despite a tendency to roll his r's (making his repeated references to the "financial sectorrr" sound slightly comical, Erik Synnestvedt reads with a strong and clear voice and an appropriate edge of indignation at the hubris of our nation's most powerful bankers. A Pantheon hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 22). (Apr.)