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Powell's Staff: 12 Books to Add to Your 2022 Summer Reading List (1 comment)
Summer has finally found its way to Portland. The bright, blue days are perfect for grabbing a blanket, filling your picnic basket with goodies, and going to the park with a good book...
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Shock Doctrine the Rise of Disaster Capitalism

by Naomi Klein
Shock Doctrine the Rise of Disaster Capitalism

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ISBN13: 9780312427993
ISBN10: 0312427999



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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

In this groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free-market economic revolution, Naomi Klein challenges the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory. From Chile in 1973 to Iraq today, Klein shows how Friedman and his followers have repeatedly harnessed terrible shocks and violence to implement their radical policies. As John Gray wrote in The Guardian, "There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books." Naomi Klein is the award-winning author of the acclaimed international bestseller No Logo and the essay collection Fences and Windows. An internationally syndicated columnist, she co-created with Avi Lewis, The Take, a documentary film. Winner of the Warwick Prize for WritingFinalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Finalist for the New York Public Library Bernstein Award for Journalism

A San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of the Year

A Chicago Sun-Times Favorite Book of the Year

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

Winner of the Libris Award for Best Non-fiction Book of the Year (Canada)

Finalist for the National Business Book Award (Canada)

A Guardian and Observer Favorite Book of the Year (U.K.)

The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq. In her groundbreaking reporting over the past few years, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.

The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movements peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.

At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years. Also available on CD as an abridged audiobook.  Please email [email protected] for more information. “The Shock Doctrine is Kleins ambitious look at the economic history of the last 50 years and the rise of free-market fundamentalism around the world . . . Klein provides a rich description of the political machinations required to force unsavory economic policies on resisting countries, and the human toll. She paints a disturbing portrait of hubris, not only on the part of Friedman but also of those who adopted his doctrines, sometimes to pursue more corporatist objectives. It is striking to be reminded how many of the people involved in the Iraq war were involved earlier in other shameless episodes in United States foreign policy history.”—Joseph E. Stiglitz, The New York Times Book Review “The Shock Doctrine is Kleins ambitious look at the economic history of the last 50 years and the rise of free-market fundamentalism around the world . . . Klein provides a rich description of the political machinations required to force unsavory economic policies on resisting countries, and of the human toll. She paints a disturbing portrait of hubris, not only on the part of Friedman but also of those who adopted his doctrines, sometimes to pursue more corporatist objectives. It is striking to be reminded how many of the people involved in the Iraq war were involved earlier in other shameless episodes in United States foreign policy history. She draws a clear line from the torture in Latin America in the 1970s to that at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay . . . Klein ends on a hopeful note, describing nongovernmental organizations and activists around the world who are trying to make a difference. After 500 pages of The Shock Doctrine, its clear they have their work cut out for them.”—Joseph E. Stiglitz, The New York Times Book Review

"With the publication seven years ago of No Logo, in the wake of the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Klein demonstrated that the 'just do it' triumphalism of Nike and other global brands masked serious inequities and injustices. Her new book, The Shock Doctrine, takes the argument an important step further. Neoliberal capitalism, she argues, thrives on catastrophe: Not only are fortunes made from the misfortunes of the masses, but the global dominance of free-market capitalism is built on the infliction of disasters on the world's less fortunate. Klein developed her position over 460-some closely argued pages of text, plus meticulous endnotes . . . The Shock Doctrine is a valuable addition to the corpus of popular books that have attempted to rethink the big ideas of our post-Cold War age."—Shashi Tharoor, The Washington Post

"The connections are daring in journalist Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine, but the result is convincing. With a bold and brilliantly conceived thesis, skillfully and cogently threaded through more than 500 pages of trenchant writing, Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time. And because the pattern she exposes could govern our future as well, The Shock Doctrine could turn out to be among the most important books of the decade . . . Klein's book is well researched and reported, with a mixture of sharp first-person observations, compelling narrative based on sources and absorbing writing . . . The story she tells so very well is very dark, however—darker than we'd like to believe. In the Harry Potter books, creatures called dementors steal souls and suck all the hope out of the air. Therapy for a dementor encounter is eating chocolate. Though this book is superbly constructed and written, and in that sense is easy to read, the content is relentlessly harrowing. It deserves to be widely read, but readers may want frequent access to a handy supply of chocolate."—William S. Kowinski, San Francisco Chronicle

“Those of us who imagine economists to be mild souls preoccupied with tedious abstractions are in for a shock from The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Kleins stunning, polemic re-examination of the last 30-plus years in the history of free-market capitalism. If we bought the myth of corporate globalization as a benign and bloodless process, Klein has more jolts in store . . . Her research is massive, meticulously documented and laid out in fluid, accessible and intriguing stories . . . The Shock Doctrine is serious and exhilarating with buzz of inside information and revealed connections. The book is ultimately hopeful because, as Klein points out, the shock wears out.”—Katherine Dunn, The Oregonian (Portland)

“A work of extraordinary synthesis, The Shock Doctrine is required reading for anyone who wants to know the roots of our current political and economic landscape and prepare for the shocks that await us.”—Ronnie Steinberg, Ms.

“In her explosive counterhistory of global capitalism, against the glib accounts offered by mainstream economists and celebrity journalists, Naomi Klein argues that the answer lies in a simple two-step strategy, honed over three decades by an international cabal of freemarket fundamentalists . . . Her new book is a broad survey of its rise as a mode of development imposed on unwilling populations throughout the world. It is also a searing indictment of its practitioners, from the ‘Chicago School juntas of Friedman acolytes who collaborated with murderous dictators so long as they professed enthusiasm, for free markets, to the international-development organizations that demanded ‘shock therapy and showed little regard for the welfare of those who absorbed it, to the corrupt officials who profited from what they benignly labeled ‘structural adjustment . . . The heart of Kleins is her arresting claim that the shock doctrine not only operates according to the logic of torture but also leads to the enactment of brutal repression—including detention, disappearances, torture, and murder—against its critics . . . The Shock Doctrine is a massive, courageous undertaking, and Kleins impassioned critique of the violence that accompanies American economic imperialism is not merely necessary but urgent.”—Eric Klinenberg, Bookforum

"Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's 'free market' policies have come to dominate the world—through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries."—AlterNet: Best Progressive Books of 2007

"The neo-liberal economic policies—privatization, free trade, slashed social spending—that the Chicago School and the economist Milton Friedman have foisted on the world are catastrophic in two senses, argues this vigorous polemic. Because their results are disastrous—depressions, mass poverty, private corporations looting public wealth, by the author's accounting—their means must be cataclysmic, dependent on political upheavals and natural disasters as coercive pretexts for free-market reforms the public would normally reject. Journalist Klein (No Logo) chronicles decades of such disasters, including the Chicago School makeovers launched by South American coups; the corrupt sale of Russia's state economy to oligarchs following the collapse of the Soviet Union; the privatization of New Orleans's public schools after Katrina; and the seizure of wrecked fishing villages by resort developers after the Asian tsunami. Klein's economic and political analyses are not always meticulous. Likening free-market shock therapies to electroshock torture, she conflates every misdeed of right-wing dictatorships with their economic programs and paints a too simplistic picture of the Iraq conflict as a struggle over American-imposed neo-liberalism. Still, much of her critique hits home, as she demonstrates how free-market ideologues welcome, and provoke, the collapse of other people's economies. The result is a powerful populist indictment of economic orthodoxy."—Publishers Weekly

“Both admires and detractors agree that the late Nobel Prize laureate Milton Friedman was an extraordinary influential economist. Canadian Klein assails Friedmans free-market percepts as their exponents have applied them to a series of formerly state-dominated economies since 1975, when Friedman persuaded Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to adopt his program. Kleins entirely negative interpretation of the results of ‘shock therapy only lays the foundation for her books thesis: that Friedmans prescriptions require a crisis and are ineluctably bound with the application of violence. This perspective informs her criticism—condemnation, in fact—of reform programs in the last three decades that have aimed to separate that state from the economy in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, China, the UK, and elsewhere. The process of market liberalization, Klein maintains, has created a ‘disaster capitalism complex, consisting of corporations that thrive on catastrophe; the author particularly arraigns security and logistics firms in the U.S. and Israel. Assiduously researched, energetically expressed, Kleins report bears an ideological perspective that wont leave readers neutral about her economic interpretations.”—Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

Review

"While Naomi Klein's new book may paint a cartoonish portrait of Milton Friedman and his impact on American foreign and economic policy, this nonetheless is a deeply researched, profoundly passionate and highly readable left-wing screed that everyone would benefit from reading." Chauncey Mabe, the National Book Critics Circle's Most Recommended list, winter 2008

Review

"Impassioned, hugely informative, wonderfully controversial, and scary as hell." John le Carré

Review

"[S]uperbly constructed and written....It deserves to be widely read." San Francisco Chronicle

Review

"[A] book that has the potential to become a lightning rod of controversy and debate." Toronto Star

Review

"Klein's book incorporates an amount of due diligence, logical structure and statistical evidence that others lack. As a result, she is persuasive when she links past and present events, including the war in Iraq and trashing of its economy, to the systematic march of laissez-faire capitalism and the downsizing of the public sector as both a worldview and a political methodology." Kirkus Reviews

Review

"Klein gives a freshness to examples that feel familiar — US oil companies in Iraq, tourist resorts in tsunami-destroyed beaches, privatisation after hurricane Katrina — by placing them in a wider context that includes Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973 and the Falklands conflict in 1982." The Observer

Synopsis

The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global free market has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq

In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term disaster capitalism. Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic shock treatment, losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.

The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.

At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.

Synopsis

In this groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free-market economic revolution, Naomi Klein challenges the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory. From Chile in 1973 to Iraq today, Klein shows how Friedman and his followers have repeatedly harnessed terrible shocks and violence to implement their radical policies. As John Gray wrote in The Guardian, "There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books."

About the Author

NAOMI KLEIN is an award-winning journalist, author, and filmmaker. Her first book, the international bestseller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, was translated into twenty-eight languages and called “a movement bible” by The New York Times. She writes an internationally syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian and reported from Iraq for Harpers Magazine. In 2004, she released The Take, a feature documentary about Argentinas occupied factories, co-produced with director Avi Lewis. She is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws degree from the University of Kings College, Nova Scotia.


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Average customer rating 4.9 (11 comments)

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jeffrey kahle , August 04, 2012
This book will open your eyes to the neoliberal corporate agenda of both political parties.

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Mary Morley , January 03, 2012
Wonderful book. Eye opening.

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Peter Henry , January 01, 2012
After several years, and at the urging of Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers' Union, I have finally read this important book. Klein explains how economic Neoliberal elites use (or create if necessary) shocks (wars, coups d'etat, natural disasters, financial crises) to extract wealth from the public sphere and funnel it up to the 1%. In many cases situations that may appear like bonehead mistakes which caused chaos and great misery (the Iraq War; American support for the looting of government enterprises in the former Soviet Union, for two examples), were planned and happily used by the capitalists who were pulling the strings to help them consolidate their financial power. The ideology of Neoliberalism - the worldview that everything the government does should be privatized, that greed is good and the more greed there is the better, and that poor people deserve what they've got - demands of its disciples a blank slate on which to work, because normal people left to themselves are not going to go with the program. Hence the use of crises as opportunities to remove all obstacles to creating a new system. To me (Klein doesn't make the comparison), this sounds a lot like the Khmer Rouge's plans for Cambodia - in order to create a truly rational and beneficial state, they had to clear out everything first. Sorry for all the people that had to be killed, but that's the price of progress! Neoliberalism doesn't work much better than Pol Pot's regime - a permanent immiseration of 30% - 60% of the population, the creation of an extremely wealthy class of owners/powerbrokers, and hell with everybody else. That is, unless this is what "success" looks like to a Neoliberal economist. For normal, non-sociopathic people, Klein helps us focus on what we have to fight against to maintain a society whose goal is to benefit all of us.

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David English , September 01, 2011 (view all comments by David English)
The Shock Doctrine is a wake up call to the policies of the United States toward other nations. Klein documents behind the scenes deals that included conspiring with dictators of foreign countries. I highly recommend this book as it is an eye opener.

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bob williams , April 23, 2011 (view all comments by bob williams)
I have been a serious reader for more than 50 years, studied and taught philosophy and literature, and I would rank this book near or at the top of the most important books ever. Of course, it fulfills that ranking only if it gets read, much and well. Klein reveals where "the bodies are buried" in the history of US foreign policy and does it by recombining the unexceptionable facts we all know (or are reminded we once knew) in a new way, as a single intricately planned and forcefully controlled economic war on the poor, the Southern hemisphere, and those who do promising work for Progressive improvements in the life of anyone not of the "Parasite Class". There is no single book I know which will more certainly force the epiphanic recognition that we live in the belly of a terrible and, in terms of our foreign dealings, evil beast, totally under the control of apparently sociopathic men whose faces differ as they pass down their power but whose goals and methods almost never veer from the plan. Klein resists the charismatic flights that both the material and her writing powers would make easy and instead is just relentless and steady as she helps the reader study what we are no longer able to turn our eyes from.

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lukas , January 08, 2010 (view all comments by lukas)
One of the most ambitious, trenchant & relevant books of the decade, Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine," arrived in the midst of globalization, war on terror and the Bush presidency. Klein is an unapologetic leftist who attacks the basic and often taken for granted tenants of free market capitalism, exposing its dark ideological heart and its disastorous consequences for the poor and disenfranchised. Fiercely intelligent, challenging and articulate, this is one of the rare books the can change the way you think.

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4westovers , January 03, 2010
Ms. Klein's book is a brilliantly-written, heavily-documented economic history of our era and a shocking expose of the abuses of the much-praised "free market." This is essential reading if you would gain an understanding of what has happened to the middle class in America and of what has gone so terribly wrong with our country.

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Riposter , January 03, 2010
Brilliant if a little opportunistic.

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dr_omolu , January 15, 2009
Read "The Shock Doctrine" If I have one regret about My Experience in the Bachelor's completion program @ CIIS in 2006, it is that we did not read Naomi Klein's Magnum Opus during Global Integral Cohort (It should be required reading to graduate High School)- More than anything I have read, it uncovers the Fantasist Fascist Illuminati, which exploit the fundamentals of the current Amerikan Nightmare, and the history of Collapse- It names names, and with forensic precision measures the amount of blood under our nails. If you have not read it, please consider putting it next on any personal lists- Much Love and Grace under Fire, Dr. Con

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lizdehart , September 30, 2008 (view all comments by lizdehart)
Ms. Klein hits the nail on the head. Surprising insight from a journalist with nary an economic background. A must read.

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aunt dracula , September 26, 2008 (view all comments by aunt dracula)
This is my new favorite nonfiction book! I don't know that I've ever read as important and relevant a book as this one. The depth of information Klein presents is incredible, and the book never drags despite its length. This book summarizes a perspective that is prevalent, but rarely enunciated in such clear terms. Awesome!!!

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780312427993
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
06/24/2008
Publisher:
MACMILLAN PUBLISHING SERVICES
Pages:
720
Height:
1.25IN
Width:
5.49IN
Thickness:
1.25
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2008
Author:
Naomi Klein
Subject:
Politics - General
Subject:
Financial crises
Subject:
Globalization
Subject:
Capitalism
Subject:
POL033000

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