This is the clearest and most comprehensive account of the 2007–8 financial crisis. Tooze’s argument is that the Great Recession was not caused by an asset bubble in the US real estate market but instead constituted a crisis of the international dollar system, which exposed banks and sovereigns worldwide to the risk of a credit shock. The current right-wing backlash against globalization is a response to the crisis-prone nature of US-led global financial capitalism as described in Crashed.

A young woman, seduced by the romantic ideas she has encountered in novels and disappointed by her husband’s inability to live up to them, eventually takes on a series of debts to enable a lifestyle beyond her means. Probably the greatest account in literature of the human willingness to accept financial risk for the sake of pleasure and the promise of happiness.

This book is a classic history of economic crises from the 15th century to the time of its publication. Its conclusion, that American leadership is indispensable to the functioning of a stable economic order, is worth engaging if you want to understand the worldview of contemporary liberalism.