Austerity

Political Studies Review, Liam Stanley excellent... timely... illuminating

ACEMAXX-ANALYTICS A must-read

Paul Krugman, The New York Review of Books One of the especially good things in Mark Blyth's Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea is the way he traces the rise and fall of the idea of 'expansionary austerity', the proposition that cutting spending would actually lead to higher output. As Blyth documents, this idea 'spread like wildfire.'

Lawrence Summers, Financial Times An important polemic... valid and compelling.

The Friend Mark Blyth has written a clever, well-argued book that we should all read.

Washington Monthly Essential reading... The economy is much too important to leave to economists. We need to understand how ideas shape it, and Blyth's new book provides an excellent starting point.

Martin Wolf, Financial Times Splendid new book.

Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science University of California, Berkeley Austerity is an economic policy strategy, but is also an ideology and an approach to economic management freighted with politics. In this book Mark Blyth uncovers these successive strata. In doing so he wields his spade in a way that shows no patience for fools and foolishness.

John Quiggin, author of Zombie Economics Of all the zombie ideas that have been reanimated in the wake of the global financial crisis, austerity is the most dangerous. Mark Blyth shows how austerity created the disasters of the 1930s, and contributed to the descent of the world into global war. He shows how European austerity policies have prevented any recovery from the crisis of 2009, while rescuing and protecting the banks and financial institutions that created the crisis. An essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the current depression.

Kirkus Reviews Most fascinating is the author's discussion of the historical underpinnings of austerity, first formulated by Enlightenment thinkers Locke, Hume and Adam Smith, around the (good) idea of parsimony and the (bad) idea of debt. Ultimately, writes Blyth, austerity is a 'zombie economic idea because it has been disproven time and again, but it just keeps coming. A clear explanation of a complicated, and severely flawed, idea.

Dissent Magazine Informed, passionate.

Robert Skidelsky, author of Keynes: The Return of the Master Mark Blyth's fascinating analysis guides the reader through 'the historical ideology which has classified debt as problematic.' In doing so he outlines the relevance of century-old debates between the advocates and opponents of laissez faire, and explains why, after a brief reemergence in 2008-09, and despite the lack of evidence supporting austerity, the world turned its back on Keynesian policies.

Dani Rodrik, Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University A...

Mark Blyth is Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University. He is the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century.

Preface ; Austerity, a Personal History ; 1 A Primer on Austerity, Debt, and Morality Plays ; Part One Why We All Need to Be Austere ; 2 America: Too Big to Fail? ; Bankers, Bailouts, and Blaming the State ; 3 Europe-Too Big to Bail ; The Politics of Permanent Austerity ; Part Two Austerity's Twin Histories ; Introduction to Chapters 4, 5, and 6 ; Austerity's Intellectual and Natural Histories ; 4 The Intellectual History of a Dangerous Idea, 1692-1942 ; 5 The Intellectual History of a Dangerous Idea, 1942-2012 ; 6 Austerity's Natural History, 1914-2012 ; Part Three Conclusion ; 7 The End of Banking, New Tales, and a Taxing ; Time Ahead ; Notes ; Index