Globalization and the Politics of International Finance: The Stiglitz Verdict

摘要

This is a hard book to sum up. It cannot be described as a great book, certainly not by the yardstick of Stiglitz's own earlier papers and books. It brings us to the brink of analytically interesting and novel ideas but stops before breaking new ground. As prose it falls short because it is written too much in the form of stream of consciousness. It would have been nice if the material, rich as it is, were better organized. But, at the same time, I believe this is an important book, one of the most important that I have read in recent times, and one that must be read by anyone interested in global politics and human well-being, whether one is planning a career in international bureaucracy or to take to the streets. It is a morally courageous books, one in which the author does not flinch from taking on the powerful and the established. It is a book that could have been written only by an "embedded academic," who has been involved in global policy making, is an acute observer, and is irreverent enough to write down what he saw.