Boomerang
by Michael Lewis
Travels in the New Third World
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
76%
Critic Reviews: 13
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
80%
Reader Ratings: 2143
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Synopsis
As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.
Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with... more
About Michael Lewis
Published: September 28, 2011 by W. W. Norton & Company
Genre: Business & Economics, Education & Reference. Non-fiction. 240 pages
More in Education & Reference
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- The Price of Politics
- Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
- The Andalucian Friend: A Novel
- Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy
- All Critics: 13
- Positive: 10
- Negative: 3
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The New York Times | 26 Sep 2011
...he weaves their stories into a sharp-edged narrative that leaves readers with a visceral understanding of the fiscal recklessness that lies behind today’s headlines
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Forbes | 28 Sep 2011
He writes about important matters...and he writes about them so amusingly that he can permanently change your point of view, even of things you already had a settled opinion about.
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Washington Post | 7 Oct 2011
...the book’s incessant moralizing and stereotyping may leave readers wondering why Lewis...took the path from master storyteller to itinerant scold.
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The Guardian | 22 Sep 2012
Having risen to prominence as an acerbic commentator on the wide boys, wackos and wizards of high finance, Lewis finds plenty of targets for his scathing wit on this tour.
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San Francisco Chronicle | 23 Oct 2011
What "Boomerang" lacks as a travel guide it more than makes up for as a character study into the nature of man's irrational exuberance around easy money.
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AV Club | 19 Oct 2011
...Lewis has rarely been this consistently, righteously indignant, and the final essay underlines the need to look at American finance and business from any fresh perspective possible.
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Kirkus Reviews | 15 Nov 2011
As usual, the author delivers a nice balance of trenchant analysis and lucid writing...An enlightening, scary journey.
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PopMatters | 9 Feb 2012
It seems that with Boomerang, Lewis’s widely praised gift for simplifying may have been taken a little too far.
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The Telegraph | 14 Oct 2011
..each of these admittedly excellent pieces has already appeared in Vanity Fair, and all are still freely available on its website.
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The Globe and Mail | 7 Oct 2011
...slight, poignantly humorous 212-page book tells even the most informed student of global economics why it was inevitable.
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Full Stop | 23 Jan 2012
Boomerang is the rare combination of gripping, hilarious, and required reading. Lewis’s ability to demystify a wickedly complex subject is matchless
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Christian Science Monitor | 13 Oct 2011
It’s not a pretty story, but thanks to Lewis it is a compelling one. And despite its bleak contours Lewis doesn’t imply that it’s a completely hopeless one.
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The Telegraph | 10 Oct 2011
This is a desperately funny book, by which I mean that it is written with a funniness born of desperation.
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