Meltdown Iceland: How the Global Financial Crisis Bankupted an Entire Country - Softcover

Boyes, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408802333 ISBN 13: 9781408802335

Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2009

Synopsis

It is a truism that when America sneezes, Europe catches a cold. The subprime mortgage crisis, which began in America in 2007, unleashed a veritable epidemic of financial ill health all over the world. All European countries were affected, and the developing world also felt a chill. However it was Iceland, a tiny volcanic outcrop in the North Atlantic whose population of 300,000 had the highest GDP and counted itself the happiest in the world, which caught the worst cold. It has nearly killed them. For a few short years, the Icelanders deluded themselves that they were rich. Dour Reykjavik became the Capital of Cool. Rock musicians like Damon Albarn bought houses and stakes in pubs. Clubs boomed, the alcohol was expensive and the Krona was strong. All over the world people are trying to understand what caused the economic crisis and are asking themselves who is to blame. In Iceland that question is easily answered and the handful of bankers and politicians responsible have had to hire body guards, hole themselves up in their country houses and stay off the streets for fear of attack. Collaborating with the business editor of Iceland's leading daily newspaper, award-winning writer Roger Boyes tells the inside story of the bankrupting of Iceland and explains how it has ramifications for us all, from the private and public investors who trusted their money in Iceland's banks, to the workers in high street clothes stores whose owners no longer can pay for the shirts on their own backs. Writing with panache and colour, and drawing on interviews with everyone from artists and policitians to the local fisherman, Meltdown Iceland is an authoritative and compelling account of the financial destruction of this tiny, icy but vibrant country.

About this title

About the Author:

Roger Boyes is a writer and prize-winning European correspondent for The Times newspaper. He has been reporting from Iceland since he was sent on his first foreign assignment to cover the Cod Wars in 1976 and is the author of eleven previous books.

Review:

“British correspondent Boyes, a veteran when it comes to covering Iceland and its 300,000 citizens, recounts how the country's financial saga began in the 1990s with the privatization of banks and a series of accommodative government policies... Boyes goes beyond the financial crisis to explain the country's social structure, cultural outlook, and political and business hierarchy... For anyone interested in Iceland, Boyes's work is absolutely essential. For those needing material on the global nature of the credit crisis, this is a great supplementary source.” ―Library Journal

“How did the tiny, remote island nation of Iceland become a casualty of the global financial crisis? Boyes, correspondent for the Financial Times and the Times of London, has been reporting from Iceland since he was sent on his first assignment to cover the "Cod War" in 1976. In Iceland, as elsewhere, the seeds of destruction were planted 25 years earlier with the privatization and deregulation of the Reagan-Thatcher years... When it all fell apart during the global financial crisis, Icelandic banks collapsed, bankrupting the entire nation. Boyes follows the saga involving a mere handful of bankers and politicians, but the story becomes a microcosm of the situation facing the world at large.” ―Booklist

“A valuable adjunct to the small but growing literature surrounding the current economic crisis.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“An energetic exploration of lessons to be drawn from a statelet that skidded toward bankruptcy a year ago this month.” ―Bloomberg.com

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1408802333
• ISBN 13: 9781408802335
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244