The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq

In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.

The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.

At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.

Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 06/24/2008
Pages: 720
Weight: 1.2lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.40w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9780312427993


Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 07/06/2008 pg. 20

About the Author
Naomi Klein is the award-winning author of the acclaimed international bestsellers The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, This Changes Everything, and No Is Not Enough. She is a contributing editor for Harper's, a reporter for Rolling Stone, and writes a regular, internationally syndicated column. She has won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. In September 2018, she was named the inaugural Gloria Steinem Chair for Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University.