Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’m pretty sure anyone with even a hint of interest in international finance will enjoy this book. I, personally, have more interest now than I did before I read it, but that’s only because I had zero interest before, and Lewis a gifted writer. However, that said, I don’t if I got very much out of my read.
Which is not to say it’s bad- just over my head. Lewis travels to Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Germany, and California, to talk to the people stuck in the middle of financial melt-downs. The key word there is people, and that’s where books by Lewis are strongest, and how a person like me, in over his head, can still manage to muddle through.
I mean, I think I sort of understand that, linked to America’s sup-prime mortgage scandal, Iceland let their natural-born arrogance lead them into financial stupidity, Greece embraced an ancient taste for hubris to make for financial hypocrisy, Ireland turned an unprecedented boom economy into a historically familiar bust, Germany got tricked and guilted into trying to pay for it all, and California managed to accomplish all four scenarios by itself. (My challenge to you is to read the book and come back and tell me what a terribly glib and woefully inaccurate synopsis of Boomerang that is.)
I’m going to keep reading the books that Michael Lewis has written, because, like I said, he’s a gifted writer, and sometimes I end up learning something, even if I don’t understand it. In a lot of ways I’m just like the Icelanders, and the Greeks and the Irish. But at least Michael Lewis is making me aware, which is better than I was before, if nothing else.