En bog der kommer langt omkring, og som giver en skrækindjagende gennemgang af de seneste cirka 40 års globale finans-mareridt drevet af kyniske, grådige / svage mennesker uden rygrad. Oprørerende og deprimerende læsning på samme tid - og det samme kan desværre siges også om bogens oversigtsskabende beskrivelse af nogle af periodens mange folkelige modreaktioner, som forfatteren roser. Desværre står det meget tydeligt, at kun en udbredt og oplyst demokratisk levet praksis vil kunne skabe et bedre samfund - det vil kræve klare beskrivelser af fremtidens samfund, dets potentiale, visioner og praktiske udformning - og ikke mindst dette samfunds farer, og måder at tackle disse på. Bogens imponerende historiske fremstilling viser nemlig tydeligt, at fremtiden er tabt, med mindre vi får skabt radikalt andre og langt langt mere robuste og lige samfund. ( )

Lots of excessive rhetoric. The exposition of economics is absurd and the economic history going back more than a few decades is shaky. The only good thing in the book is his critique of the analysis of the crisis by other marxists. ( )

I picked up this book as a counterpart to the documentary Inside Job and other depictions of the recent financial crisis and I'm glad I did.
This is a book written for political economists and as well as for the lay leader, so there are parts that are difficult to wade through, but the arguments are compelling and the connections well drawn between the history of modern capitalism and the state we now find ourselves in.

Chapter five, "Debt, Discipline, and Dispossession: Race, Class and the Global Slump" should be required reading for any social progressive. McNally reveals the ways in which morally repugnant institutions (over-incarceration of people of colour, high unemployment rates, ongoing colonialism, etc) uphold Capitalism as we know it.

The final chapter, in which McNally describes his vision for a great resistance movement, was in my opinion the weakest in the book. Unfortunately, despite his brilliant deconstruction of what the problem is, McNally has little to offer in terms of new solutions. Although his suggestions are not bad, they are all fairly standard aspects of Marxist thought, and seem inadequate to address the challenges he has laid out. This doesn't stop me from highly recommending the book, but it does lead me to suggest that if you will likely need to supplement this book with something else in order to understand what can be done to get out of this "global slump."

A wide picture of today's economic climate covering how the recession happened and how people are fighting back. I was glad to have just read Twenty-Three Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism because it was like having a mini-refresher in economics before reading about the gory details of credit default swaps, etc.

The thing I both like and dislike about Global Slump is how the book is really two parts. I liked reading the minutiae of economic policy and learning how the banks, industries and insurance companies royally screwed up. But then abruptly the book changes course and describes the erosion of the commons around the world, privatization, land grabs and the resistance to all of those things. Not that it wasn't interesting, but halfway through the book I wondered if I had started reading a totally different one. ( )