Meltdown Iceland
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'Boyes's utterly gripping account of how Iceland swiftly became the "microcosm" of a planetary market panic yields as crisp and bleak a saga of the downside of globalisation as you will ever read. As he traces the nation's journey from free-spending hubris to bankrupt nemesis, a story emerges of such eerie and bizarre drama that you feel caught up in some parable co-written by Ballard and Pratchett' Independent 'Boyes has done a remarkable job to produce this book barely year after some of the events it describes. He knows Iceland well and conveys the strangeness of the landscape, the dogged decency of its people and the endless "white nights" of the Arctic summer.' Robert Harris, Sunday Times 'Boyes gets close to the heart of the corporate skull-duggery' Financial Times 'Boyes, a Times correspondent, efficiently analyses Iceland as a microcosm of a bigger problem and considers its next moves' The Times
Product Description
The inside story of the bankrupting of Iceland It is a truism that when America sneezes, Europe catches a cold. The sub-prime mortgage crisis, which began in America in 2007, unleashed a veritable epidemic of financial ill health all over the world. All European countries were affected, and the developing world also felt a chill. However it was Iceland, a tiny volcanic outcrop in the North Atlantic whose population of 300,000 had the highest per capita GDP and counted itself the happiest in the world, which caught the worst cold. It has nearly killed them. Written with panache and colour, and drawing on interviews with everyone from the prime minister, Sir Phillip Green, the governor of the central bank, Bjork and the local fisherman, Meltdown Iceland is an authoritative account of the financial destruction of this tiny, icy but vibrant country.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When I bought this book I was excited to get the British side of the Icelandic story. Sadly the book has almost nothing to offer in that regard. The author seems to have written the book after having stayed for few weeks in Iceland and taking interviews with a selected group of people. However, for some reason he does not have taken the care to let some native or someone with an intimate knowledge of Iceland read the manuscript before publication since the book is full of factual errors and either incomplete or incorrect rendering of events that could have been easily corrected by almost any person taken off the street of Reykjavik. Quite often Mr. Boyes just echoes urban legends, such that Icelanders all believe in elves, or simply takes direct sentences and clichés from tourist guides. Worse still, is apparent that Mr. Boyes has very limited knowledge of both finance and banking and thus takes very dubious shortcuts in explaining chain of events. There are people in Iceland that believe, like Mr. Boyes, that the banking collapse in Iceland can best be explained as a personal duel between Jon Asgeir Johannesson the "owner" of Baugur and Glitnir and the former Central Bank governor and Prime Minister David Oddsson. However, for most informed observers that is both a cheap and simplified explanation. The same goes for many of the other analysis Mr. Boyes offers in this book. I, for one, doubt that Jon Asgeir Johannesson got the terrible urge to launch his "financial invasion" of Britain as a child during the Cod Wars between Iceland and Britain in the 1970's.
I have no doubt that Mr. Boyes is a clever and experienced journalist. In some cases it is quite interesting to read an outsider's perspective on the events in Iceland. However, there must be some minimal level of field work and research outsiders must do to be able to write a credible and accurate account of such drastic and deep ranging social and economic events in a foreign country. Sadly, it seems that Mr. Boyes did not have the time go rise above that threshold when writing this book.
I have no doubt that Mr. Boyes is a clever and experienced journalist. In some cases it is quite interesting to read an outsider's perspective on the events in Iceland. However, there must be some minimal level of field work and research outsiders must do to be able to write a credible and accurate account of such drastic and deep ranging social and economic events in a foreign country. Sadly, it seems that Mr. Boyes did not have the time go rise above that threshold when writing this book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have read with great interest this book written with a pleasant prose.
Being half Italian I am - unfortunately - used to misgovernment and it has been astonishing to read how a country, always depicted as nearly perfect in all fields, could become a sort of international "pariah" after swallowing savings from various European countries threatening not to return them even !
The easy and tautological concept "when investing in something risky you can get higher interests on one hand but on the other you get higher risks" (and therefore may lose your amount of money) should be written on walls in our Western world.
The fruit of greed has impoverished so many Europeans, but we must also remember how some banks have used savings, forgetting that behind a bank account number there are families, children, elders, HUMAN BEINGS with their hopes sorrows expectations etc.
A new ethics is compulsory in the finance world, but I am very dubious that the lesson have been useful and understood.
Congratulations to Mr Boyes and an invitations to reluctant people to read his book.
Being half Italian I am - unfortunately - used to misgovernment and it has been astonishing to read how a country, always depicted as nearly perfect in all fields, could become a sort of international "pariah" after swallowing savings from various European countries threatening not to return them even !
The easy and tautological concept "when investing in something risky you can get higher interests on one hand but on the other you get higher risks" (and therefore may lose your amount of money) should be written on walls in our Western world.
The fruit of greed has impoverished so many Europeans, but we must also remember how some banks have used savings, forgetting that behind a bank account number there are families, children, elders, HUMAN BEINGS with their hopes sorrows expectations etc.
A new ethics is compulsory in the finance world, but I am very dubious that the lesson have been useful and understood.
Congratulations to Mr Boyes and an invitations to reluctant people to read his book.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book, which I read as a copy borrowed from my local library, was so fascinating that I felt bound to buy a copy to give as a present to my son, who is a small business advisor. The description of how an entire very small country became enmeshed in the fascination of "very rich" society was gripping and very readable. Highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Thought Iceland had clean government? Think again.
Meltdown Iceland is completely gripping, and tells the inside story of how Iceland bankrupted itself in 2009. Read more
Published 9 months ago by John Reardon
this is the one !
This was a great read even in summer 2011 and I found I could not put it down - a much easier read than anticipated as it was extremely interesting. Read more
Published 11 months ago by dreamflower
A Viking Saga
From private investors, pension funds to government bonds and local councils, everyone was taken in by the lure of investing in Iceland. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Sontee
Meltdown Iceland
Bought this ahead of a 40-year awaited visit to Iceland - three times postponed, then again threatened because of successive closure of European and Icelandic airspace. Read more
Published on 29 May 2010 by timby
Meltdown Iceland: How the Global Financial Crisis Bankupted an Entire...
Excellent book. Gives a detailed account of the political and economic reasons for the 'bankruptcy' of Iceland. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2010 by Darragh Mehigan
Fast-paced tale of how Iceland's economy melted
Most people aren't very familiar with Iceland, an isolated, homogenous, near-Arctic island. Now, thanks to Roger Boyes's wonderfully told tale of its financial collapse, readers... Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2010 by Rolf Dobelli
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