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Feb 15, 2009

Trevor rated it:

There is a part of me that would like to make this review a bit funny. This is a deeply disturbing book. I’ve a preference for humour as a means of confronting the deeply disturbing. But I can’t bring myself to say anything remotely funny about this book.

Klein compares some psychological experiments (torture by any reasonable definition of the word) carried out in the 1950s in Canada (funded by the CIA off US soil so they could plausibly deny they were researching torture) in whic More...

35 comments like (69 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2007

Evan rated it:

This is an ambitious book. It tries to tie the economic politics of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia (in the 1970s), Russia, Poland, China, South Africa (in the 1980s and early nineties), the war in Iraq, the tsunami, and hurricane Katrina into a unified theory. Obviously, certain investigative and interpretive biases are required to make this work. Third world nationalism and developmentalism, in general, get off pretty easy in Klein's analysis. As a specialist in Indonesia, I found her portrayal More...

13 comments like (23 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2008

James rated it:

“The lucky get Kevlar, the rest get prayer beads.”

This is a chilling, writhing outrage of a book. A hideous, squealing beast of a book that cannot and should not be ignored.

Klein has dropped the curtain on an ugly, malevolent Wizard. When these kind of curtains drop, we never like what we see. Like so many of these kinds of leftist exposes on conservatives, the Bush Administration, the neocons and their rabble, this book needn’t have been written. Orwell wrote it already. But More...

1 comment like (27 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2008

Rhyd rated it:

I just finished The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein. It came out months ago, and I would’ve read it sooner had it not cost $45 dollars in Canada.

Much of the information meticulously detailed in the book was already available in Harper’s Magazine and DemocracyNow!, though never put together so throroughly. She begins her book with a discussion of a canadian woman who endured several years of experimental psychiatric work under the authority of David More...

3 comments like (14 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2009

Mark rated it:

Dear Naomi Klein,
I recently finished reading your latest book, The Shock Doctrine. Your detailed account of the connections between neoliberal economic policy and the use of violent repression, the decline of welfare states, and the rise of corporatized war and disaster capitalism is compelling. You thread together the recent histories of military brutality in the Southern Cone of South America, union busting in Margaret Thatcher’s England, and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. T More...

5 comments like (10 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2009

Logan rated it:

As someone who used to consume nonfiction with the voracious appetite of a trucker at an Old Country Buffet, I find it odd and not a little unsettling that, since joining Goodreads, a solid 95% of my reading material has come from the fiction side of the bookstore. While this has definitely helped fill some dramatic gaps in my knowledge, it was with much relief that I tucked myself into Klein's The Shock Doctrine earlier this week. I'd attempted reading this in the heady afterglow of the elect More...

5 comments like (15 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2010

Whitaker rated it:

Three recent articles in The Guardian are particularly interesting in the light of Naomi Klein’s conclusions in this book. On the one hand, "'Day of Wrath' brings Russians on to the streets against Vladimir Putin" bears out her thesis of citizen blowback against unrestrained capitalism. So apparently does "How China's internet generation broke the silence". That article, however, goes on to note:

Many in the west see it as self-evident that an increased flow of i

More...

9 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2008

Naeem rated it:

The mid-book review (see below) holds up. I have finished the book and it is not a good book. It is a great book. Klein has really achieved something here. Politics, economics, international relations, culture, ideology, and the human capacity to resist domination -- all come together here.

Klein's global range and tremendous detail are really heartening to me.

Below is the mid-book review written a few days ago:

I am up to chapter 11 (out of 22). So th More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2011

Becky rated it:

I'm going to begin this review with the most important part: Read this book.

I've wanted to read this book for quite a while, being that I like to think I'm not a complete political dumbass. I know that George "Dubya" Bush's administration was corrupt and a disease-ridden greed breeding-ground. I knew that Dick Cheney isn't to be trusted as far as a paraplegic could throw him, that Dubya himself is far from being the no-brain borderline illiterate that he liked to play on T More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jun 15, 2008

David rated it:

I only got about ¼ into this. I don't like the shifty way Klein argues her points. I felt like I was being propagandized rather than educated.

Much of her main “shock doctrine” argument seems to be just sort of a tightly-woven set of linguistic parallels that are meant to suggest causation. Something like: Hitler had the autobahn built. The autobahn allowed drivers to finally race where they wanted to go. Hitler crafted what he thought of as the final solution to a race problem. So More...

13 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2007

Grant rated it:

I would seriously like to see every human on this planet read this book. I can’t think of any other book I would more highly recommend today.

The whole text was rich in the exposing of history and deep analysis. I strongly encourage anyone reading it to stick through to the end. The bulk of the book covers quite terrible things in the world, but the last chapter actually made me very hopeful and inspired.

Utterly brilliant!

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2011

Will rated it:

This was a very illuminating work about how chaotic situations are used, and sometimes created, as cover for the imposition of drastic economic and political reorganization in vulnerable economies. The end product of these actions is a so-called free market model as advocated by the Chicago School of Milton Friedman and his acolytes. Examples used include Chile, China, Argentina, Bolivia, South Africa, Russia, among others. The technique is for western financial powers to swoop in during a time More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2008

Maura rated it:

Wow. This and Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America, which Klein cited frequently, are the two best books I've read in years.

What's amazing is that none of the historical or current events she covered were really new to me--I read the papers, I'm up on my Latin American history, and I'd had a basic understanding of Chicago School ideology... but she pointed out connections between them all that I hadn't seen before. I felt her analogizes between economic shock therapy and to More...

4 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 12, 2007

Lynn rated it:

The central thesis of this book is that Freidman neo-liberal economics (privatization, deregulation,cutbacks in social spending) has been implemented around the world by creating or taking advantage of national shocks. Created as in coups in Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, taking advantage as in the natural disasters in Sri Lanka and New Orleans and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the U.S. Neo-liberals have been able to impose this shock therapy undemocratically by taking advantage of populations More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2007

Sara rated it:

You can't have capitalism without capitalists. The intentional pervasive spread of capitalism is proven as no evolutionary process that begets an economic system out of the blue only because it is a natural progression. What Naomi Klien illustrates is how intentional and manipulated ,and how dependent upon suppression and violence, this "progression" turned out to be. Through spreading their influence to countries such as Chile, Russia and now Iraq the Chicago School economists pur More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Nov 28, 2011

Bettie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

13 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2009

Shannon rated it:

There is a kind of history that gets overlooked, that doesn't get taught in schools or universities aside from a fourth-year optional course that no one bothers to take. It's a history that is fundamental to understanding our world, both past and present and where the hell we're going. It's a history that touches everyone, regardless of class, gender, race or age, but that slips out the back door before anyone thinks to call it to account, put it on trial and expose its heinous crimes. I'm talki More...

10 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2010

Manny rated it:

A very disturbing book indeed. I can't decide whether I feel that her paranoia got out of control, or whether it is indeed a fair representation of US foreign policy over the last 30-40 years. A lot of it rings true. Though I hope that the links between torture and economic theory are not as clear as she paints them... that was the part I had the hardest time swallowing. Maybe we will learn more now that the Neo-Cons are going to lose control of the US.

_______________________________ More...

8 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2008

Christopher rated it:

Conservatives will call this book conspiracy theory, and the inside jacket flap made me hesitate for about six months before I read it. But this is not the stuff of "George W. Bush planned, plotted, and carried out 9/11" conspiracy theory (as if Bush wouldn't have messed that up too). The shock doctrine essentially asserts that governments use the public shock following catastrophes (whether natural, as with Hurricane Katrina, or intentional, as with several of the 1970s coups in South More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2008

angela rated it:

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a popularized account of disaster capitalism and "shock" economics.

Although, I'll be honest, it didn't quite grab me up front - I found that Klein began the book with a number of oversimplifications in describing both the issues with disaster capitalism and economics and political economy more generally. However, by the time I made it through the first third I became far more impressed with her analysis. Some of her arg More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2008

Zeph rated it:

This book is enlightening and infuriating. My Mom sent it to me for Xmas, claiming that it "shocked" her, and she's no dummy. Though criminal greed masquerading as free trade ideology doesn't surprise me, Klein cuts through the abstract haze surrounding economics with enough hard evidence, individual narratives and damning quotes to explosively personalize global events.

A forty year history of international finance negotiations and dry economic theory take on riveting pract More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2008

Cat rated it:

In the aftermath of the San Diego fires this volume caught my eye. Mostly, it was the subheading "The rise of disaster capitalism." Published in 2007, the summary promised a thorough indictment of the Milton Friedman inspired economics of "disaster capitalism" i.e. the method by which governments and corporations use natural & man made disasters to push through radical neo-liberal reforms during a period when the population, which normally would vociferously object to ideas l More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2007

Hank Horse rated it:

Klein provides trenchant analysis of the human costs of fundamentalist free-market privatization policies. She gives case after outrageous case.

This book is a valuable tool for understanding the politics and history of the last 50 years.

One aspect of the book I think especially timely is her analysis of torture as a state policy designed to intimidate populations resistant to neoliberal economic schemes. It makes anyone who uses that old "But what if you had a terro More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2007

Gemma rated it:

Excellent and compellingly written book about how Milton Friedman's Chicago school of free market capitalism has been imposed on countries following shocks, whether caused by natural or contrived disasters, and how the initial shock and followup shocks in the form of repression and frequently torture have been used to impose these deeply unpopular measures. Takes in Chile, Columbia, Russia, Poland, Britain under Thatcher and the war on terror. Points out how disaster capitalism profits from crea More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2007

Kerry rated it:

A very disturbing read even with the positive ending. As someone who has taught History and Politics since the 1970s this book made sense of a lot of the seeming absurdities of US foreign policy through that period. Sad that Friedman died before he could be indicted for war crimes but it was never going to happen anyway. The US only allows very low level people to be brought to justice for this sort of thing. The section on tsunami aid was simply sickening and really shows how morally bankrupt t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 31, 2007

Holly rated it:

I started this book half-expecting socialist propaganda. While reading it, I felt compelled to actually look up and research its incredible claims. By the time I finished this book, I found myself changed not only by the history lesson, but by the in-your-face current events reporting and grim foreshadowing of the potential future of every nation--as well as the role of the United States in all of these.

For the first time I have a clearer understanding of the phrase, "If you're More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 08, 2007

Bill rated it:

Using shock treatment as a metaphor, Klein analyzes the importance of economic dislocations and disasters to the success of Milton Friedman's free market philosophy. This is a very important book, and shows why the apparent stupidities of the Bush administration in Iraq and Katrina are actually deliberate measures designed to daze and demoralize people into accepting a radical free-market agenda.

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2009

Peggy rated it:

An eye opener about Disaster Capitalism as the driving economic export of American economic doctrine first implemented by Ronald Reagan in Latin America. Milton Freedman is it's founder and started the Chicago School of Economics. We have exported this form of economic torture and destruction of the underclasses for the great enrichment of the upper-classes world wide. The book is well documented and a gripping, terrifying thrill ride into our darkest impulses. It is at the heart of the NeoC More...

8 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2009

Phil rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Oct 26, 2011

Gordon rated it:

Authored by Canadian journalist and anti-globalization crusader Naomi Klein, this book quickly became an international bestseller in 2007. The global financial crisis that started the following year didn't hurt its sales either, given its title and subject matter.

The thesis of the book is that right-wing elites take advantage of political, economic and military crises in order to enact wholesale, rapid makeovers of a country's political and economic system. She believes that the unde More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

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