Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

the eurozone from 2010 was extraordinary. The denial, lack of initiative and coordination that had characterized Europe’s first response to the banking crisis in September and early October 2008 was a harbinger of things to come. In the first phase of the crisis in the autumn of 2008, the stresses could still be contained at the national level. In 2010 they spilled over into a general struggle for the future of Europe. Europe’s single currency almost came apart. Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain were driven into depressions the likes of which had not been seen since the 1930s. Italy became collateral damage. France’s sovereign credit was put in jeopardy. Prime ministers were ousted. Political parties collapsed. Nationalist passions were stirred to the boiling point. The Obama administration faced the prospect that Europe’s new crisis might spill back on the United States. In the spring of 2009 France and Germany had lectured the UK and the United States about financial stability. A year later they were reduced to calling on the IMF to help not just Greece but the eurozone as a whole. And it was not enough. Two years later the eurozone crisis was still menacing global financial stability.

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