The Age of Instability

The near-collapse of the global banking system was not supposed to happen. In an era of financial globalisation and sophisticated modelling of risk, the manias, panics and crashes of the past had apparently become historical curiosities. This book asks how did an apparently clear blue economic sky mask the approaching ferocious storm.

---

Bored with endless grandstanding and people being wise after the event? Then, The Age of Instability is the one book you should read on the financial crisis.

Setting the near collapse of the international financial markets and banking system in a global and historical context, Sunday Times Economics editor and bestselling author, David Smith, looks not only at the political and economic factors that contributed to the fall of Lehmans, collapse of Iceland and disintegration of the subprime mortgage market but also at the emergence of a culture of risk and greed that made it possible to believe that greed was good and the good times would last forever.

The Age of Instability provides an authoritative yet accessible guide to what happened, where, and when with practical suggestions for what needs to happen next.