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The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism [Paperback]

Naomi Klein
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
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Book Description

1 May 2008

From the bestselling author of No Logo, Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism cracks open the secret history of our era to look at how from a privileged few are making millions from worldwide devastation.

Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors.

Exposing these global profiteers, Naomi Klein discovered information and connections that shocked even her about how comprehensively the shock doctors' beliefs now dominate our world - and how this domination has been achieved. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq - this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed.

'Packed with thinking dynamite ... a book to be read everywhere'
  John Berger

'If you only read one non-fiction book this year, make it this one'
  Metro Books of the Year

'There are a few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books'
  John Gray, Guardian

'A brilliant book written with a perfectly distilled anger, channelled through hard fact. She has indeed surpassed No Logo'
  Independent

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker. Her first book was the international bestseller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, called 'a movement bible' by The New York Times. The Shock Doctrine has been translated into more than twenty languages.


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The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism + No Logo + Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain
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Product details

  • Paperback: 576 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; 1st edition (1 May 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141024534
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141024530
  • Product Dimensions: 2.4 x 12.8 x 19.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,561 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Impassioned, hugely informative, wonderfully controversial, and scary as hell (John le Carré)

Packed with thinking dynamite … a book to be read everywhere (John Berger)

If you read only one non-fiction book this year, make it this one (, Books of the Year Metro)

There are few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books (John Gray Guardian)

Lucid, calm, impeccably researched, gorgeously readable (, Books of the Year Observer)

A brilliant, brave and terrifying book (Arundhati Roy)

Powerful … epic … dramatic (Daily Telegraph)

A brilliant book written with a perfectly distilled anger, channelled through hard fact. She has indeed surpassed No Logo (Independent)

Excoriating … passionate and informed … Her prose packs a punch (Scotsman)

About the Author

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker. The Shock Doctrine has been translated into more than twenty languages. It was a hardback bestseller in Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, nominated for multiple awards including the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the New York Public Library Bernstein Award for Journalism. Naomi Klein writes an internationally syndicated column for The Guardian and The Nation and reported from Iraq for Harper's magazine. In 2004, she released The Take, a feature documentary about Argentina's occupied factories, co-produced with director Avi Lewis. She is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King's College, Nova Scotia. Her first book was the international bestseller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, called "a movement bible" by The New York Times.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
370 of 386 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Profiting From Disaster 25 May 2008
Format:Paperback
Ideology aside, I consider this to be one of the most important books of our time. The reason I started off the way I did is that many people will react to Naomi Klein's book based on their political leanings. In fact, before starting this book, I was inclined to disagree with her premise -that Chicago School economics can be directly tied to oppressive regimes in many parts of the world. This book, however, thoroughly proves this disconcerting truth. The Shock Doctrine is also a brilliant expose and an elegant model which enables us to understand modern history in a new way.

I had originally seen a short video online that summarized the ideas of this book, and my first reaction (again, before reading the book) was that this must be a typical leftist rant, making an abstruse analogy between an economic system with which the author disagrees and real life practices like torture and shock treatment. As someone who was raised, or at least self-raised as basically a libertarian, I did not want to believe Klein's argument. In fact, the only reason I bothered to read the book is that I liked her earlier book, No Logo so much. She is one of the few writers on political and economic subjects whom I actually enjoy reading. Her style is so lucid that, even if I don't agree with some of her ideas, I understand where she is coming from and enjoy following her reasoning.

Alas, there is nothing abstract, symbolic or abstruse about The Shock Doctrine. Nor is it any kind of conspiracy theory, as one reviewer oddly remarked. Everything in this book is well documented, and most of the references are anything but obscure. You can find almost everything that is written about here by going back over newspapers of the last few decades.
... Read more ›
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94 of 100 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fragile democracy 29 Aug 2008
Format:Paperback
This book has shocked me thoroughly. In Denmark, we currently have a liberal government slowly dismantling our welfare system, which some would say is about high time since we have the highest taxes in the world. But reading the Shock Doctrine I have become a staunch believer in a social democratic society. I will happily pay my high taxes if I can trust my government is spending them right. The alternative is not an option for me. A happy society is one where all people have true opportunities, where very few are poor, and where those who are not able to fend for themselves are helped to lead a decent life by the society.
What is so ironic about Naomi Klein's revelations is the fact that the US shout out to anyone who cares to listen that they are defending democracy and want to spread it to the Middle East and elesewhere. Yeah sure. What hypocracy! The Shock Doctrine reminds us that the US have been behind the dismantling of some 12 democracies around the world for pure economic and geopolitical self-interest. My estimate is that most of those countries would today have been well functioning, prosperous democracies instead of poor developing nations traumatized by former cruel dictatorships installed by the US.
I don't know about you Americans, but I'm sure ready for CHANGE :O)
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent and frightening book 15 April 2009
Format:Paperback
Many years ago, I read Milton Friedman's book "Free to Choose". At the time I thought it made a lot of sense, but I came away with the impression that Friedman was a one-trick pony - believing that the private sector held the answer to everything.

Now, having read "The Shock Doctrine", I realize that "Free to Choose" was written after Friedman got the chance to try out his theories in real life. The fact that his free market reforms lead to massive unemployment and spectacular inequality in societies that practice them didn't seem to give Friedman pause for thought. What is particularly striking about Naomi Klein's book is her assertion that the free market has nothing to do with democracy. Effectively, the neo-liberals and later neo-conservatives are actually neo-colonials out to get their hands on countries' public utilities for the greater good of massive multi-nationals.

"The Shock Doctrine" is that rare book where scholarly research is presented in a readable formet. If some of the things that have happened in recent times don't make sense, read this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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80 of 86 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Totally mindblowing 30 Oct 2008
Format:Paperback
This is my first ever review on Amazon. No book has ever moved me to want to take action before like The Shock Dcotrine. Ok, so writing an Amazon review isn't going to change the world but getting as many people as possible to read this book is a step in the right direction.

A friend who recommended the book to me said it was powerful, but I wasn't prepared for just how powerful. Page after page I felt real physical rage and disbelief at how these horrific and world changing events have been happening for decades (and continue to happen) and yet have remained so under the radar of most of us.

Describing the contents of the book has been done very eloquently in other reviews, so I won't repeat that here. But I will just say PLEASE, whatever your political colour, however sceptical you are, PLEASE read this book, it will change how you view the world.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Shock and Awe 19 July 2011
Format:Hardcover
This awesome, scary book was published in 2007, well before the 2008 banking crisis and the current, mid 2011, US debt and Euro crises. The book is very well written indeed (590 pages) plus 70 pp. of references.

Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein (NK) explains Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman (MF)'s economic theories and how his ideas were applied by hundreds of his graduates from the University of Chicago, first in dictatorships like Chile and Bolivia in the early 70's, later in more democratic countries, up to and including post-Tsunami Sri Lanka (2005-6) and Iraq after its US conquest. Both his ideas and his graduates inspire and staff the IMF and the World Bank too. I find this book deeply worrying.

MF advocated "hollow" states barely intervening in the economy, outsourcing as many tasks as possible to private companies deemed to be more effective and efficient than state agencies. Sudden crises (sometimes planned and provoked) were early on spotted as helpful, nay, preconditions for swift, forced adoption of economic shock therapy in nations with a prominent state role in the economy. NK provides ample evidence of how 'shock therapy' has been applied worldwide since the early 1970's and of its immediate, sorry results in terms of job losses and sudden poverty.

NK then shifts to the war against Iraq and the USA's incompetent management of its military victory. She exposes many of the major US politicians/players in the Iraq drama as liars with big financial stakes in a positive outcome. In what? In companies involved in privatised warfare abroad and in homeland security...

NK explains recent US wars in terms of opening new markets, liberalizing local laws favorable to US business. The wars rely on tax dollars from the US government.
... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Living with choice or fear?
This book imparts an understanding of how we are worked, in the scheme of things. Scary but real. Great for those studying or just needing that sceniaro that backs up what they... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Lynn Collins
5.0 out of 5 stars The Shock Doctrine
A good book, reading it was a bit of a slog but the contents are very interesting, revealing and worrying.........
Published 1 month ago by J. Piechocki
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful - read it at you own risk
In the UK we are told that austerity is the inevitable result of the crisis caused by us, the voting public, over spending. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Bluesview
4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic eye opener
This book is bound to blow your world apart, it tells the truth and opens up the lies that comes with politics. Naomi is a fantastic writer.
Published 3 months ago by Mrs. J. M. Mackenzie
5.0 out of 5 stars The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Everyone should be forced to read books like this instead of being fed a diet of Xfactor and Dancing on Ice. People need to wake up to our disaster of an economy and take action.
Published 4 months ago by Ms. Isabelle A. Maricic
5.0 out of 5 stars The Chicago Boys hoodwink the world.
A real eye opener about what is happening in the world. This was written and researched before the financial crash, but I hear and see things happening in Britain that are stated... Read more
Published 5 months ago by market 17
5.0 out of 5 stars shock doctrine
bought the book after watching the dvd as i wanted to have more in depth analysis of the current economic problems, if interested in this area i would recommend this book
Published 5 months ago by rachel o'gorman
5.0 out of 5 stars Staggering! The things revealed in this book shocked me and made me...
I like other reviewers feel like my eyes have been opened by a methodical and very carefully written book (albeit it impassioned and with a particularly strong point of view) which... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Herman Daisychain
5.0 out of 5 stars the shock doctrine
THIS BOOK SHOULD BE A MUST FOR ANYONE ATTEMPTING TO UNDERSTAND THE REASON FOR THE STATE THAT POLITICAL ,BANKING AND CORPORATE MALSFEASANCE HAS REACHED. Read more
Published 8 months ago by jackgee
5.0 out of 5 stars EVERYBODY SHOULD READ THIS BOOK
This book is a real eye opener on the corruption that is carried out by the USA and corporate companies. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Carole
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