Business as Usual

The Roots of the Global Financial Meltdown

Craig Calhoun editor Georgi Derluguian editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:New York University Press

Published:1st May '11

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Business as Usual cover

A collection of original essays analyzing the factors that resulted in the global economic crisis

Situates the crisis in the historical trajectory of the capitalist world-system, showing how the crisis was made possible not only by neoliberal financial reforms but by a massive turn away from manufacturing things of value towards seeking profit from financial exchange and credit.

Situates the current crisis in the historical trajectory of the capitalist world-system, showing how the crisis was made possible not only by neoliberal financial reforms but by a massive turn away from manufacturing things of value towards seeking profit from financial exchange and credit. Much more basic than the result of a few financial traders cheating the system, this is a potential historical turning point. In original essays, the contributors establish why the system was ripe for crisis of the past, and yet why this meltdown was different. The volume concludes by asking whether as deep as the crisis is, it may contain seeds of a new global economy, what role the US will play, and whether China or other countries will rise to global leadership.
Contributors include: Giovanni Arrighi, Gopal Balakrishnan, Manuel Castells, Daniel Chirot, Fernando Coronil, Nancy Fraser, James K. Galbraith, David Harvey, Caglar Keyder, Beverly J. Silver, and Immanuel Wallerstein.
The three volumes can purchased individually or as a set.
Business as Usual is the first part of a trilogy comprised of the first three books in the Possible Future series.
Volume 1: Business as Usual
Volume 2: The Deepening Crisis
Volume 3: Aftermath
The three volumes are linked by a common introduction and can be purchased individually or as a set.

"The high quality of the wide-ranging essays makes this volume a worthwhile addition to library collections and a valuable resource for both students and specialists wanting to explore the complex roots of the financial crisis." -- M. Perelman * Choice *
"A brilliant and inspiring collection of analyses from world-renowned international social theorists and political economists, far-reaching in its implications for our understanding, not just of the current crisis, but of its historical roots and the importance of politics to the future of global socio-economic structures." -- Kate Nash,author of The Cultural Politics of Human Rights
"There may be a silver lining to the global financial meltdown of 2008, for it has made possible a book such as this one. In Business as Usual, Craig Calhoun and Georgi Derluguian have brought together some of & the best and brightest in the business and given them a most unusual task: to tell the story of the financial crisis in all its complexity, in a manner that is both clear and precise. The result is critical social science at its best: more than explanation, prediction or prescription, this book offers the promise of actual understanding." -- Ivan Ascher,University of Massachusetts, Amherst
"Calhoun and Derlugians co-edited book will be important for sociologists because of the wide range of arguments enlisted in an attempt to correlate the various parameters and focus discussion on specific theoretical aspects of the crisis." * Critical Sociology *

ISBN: 9780814772782

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 408g

312 pages