BOOMERANG Travels in the New Third World

After the housing bubble burst and the giant banking bailouts began, a number of world economies hung—and still hang—in the balance. Dylan Baker uses a friendly, folksy delivery to examine the fascinating, frightening, and mind-boggling ways that the cultures of Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and, yes, California handled the pursuit of wealth. Icelandic fishermen stopped fishing and became currency traders. The Irish saw themselves as land barons. Californians paid too much for everything. And they all ended up being left on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars—and still are. Baker’s voice reflects Michael Lewis’s bemused realization that many of these cultures and individuals had no idea of the manipulative power of the global financial industry. If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry. B.P. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2011]