The Crisis of Risk: Subprime Debt and US Financial Power from 1944 to Present

For the last decade, progressive scholars determined to understand the 2008 financial crisis have examined the growth of US subprime mortgage debt in the period leading up to the collapse and how government policy supported this accumulation. However, the long history of the subprime crisis, its connection to the patterns of financial risk designated by the postwar international monetary system, has been all too often overlooked.

Subsequently, the literature has considered the financial crisis as somehow disconnected from the specific evolution of the Bretton Woods financial system and the perceived safety of US Treasury bonds. With this, an important opportunity has been lost to develop critical political economy literature on financial markets. This book explores the long history of the subprime crisis through an original theoretic lens that sheds light on the institutional basis of global debt markets and the role of US Treasury debt in the international financial system.

This book will introduce new ideas and appeal to university students and faculty interested in learning more about US financial power and the origins of the subprime crisis.

Scott M. Aquanno, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Ontario Tech University, Canada