plenty of other people here and elsewhere have documented the book's flaws so i'll just limit myself to saying in and around the halfway point crashed becomes increasingly op-ed and tooze's focus moves from the financial crisis to everything from NATO to Occupy to which members of the Italian Communist Party kissinger liked. it's too much and i would have liked to read the reasonably meticulous introduction to the architecture of high finance the book initially promises before it gives way to a cosmetic account of world politics viewed through the prism of Obama, Sarkozy & Merkel's political fortunes.