By far the best book on China to have been published in many years, and one of the most important inquiries into the nature of modernisation. Jacques's comprehensive and richly detailed analysis will be an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to understand contemporary China

Provocative ... stimulating ... full of bold but credible predictions ... I suspect it will long be remembered for its foresight and insight

This important book, deeply considered, full of historical understanding and realism, is about more than China. It is about a twenty-first-century world no longer modelled on and shaped by North Atlantic power, ideas and assumptions. I suspect it will be highly influential

Jacques's book will provoke argument and is a tour de force across a host of disciplines

[An] exhaustive, incisive exploration of possibilities that many people have barely begun to contemplate about a future dominated by China. ... [Jacques] has written a work of considerable erudition, with provocative and often counterintuitive speculations about one of the most important questions facing the world today. And he could hardly have known, when he set out to write it, that events would so accelerate the trends he was analyzing.

A very forcefully written, lively book that is full of provocations and predictions

[A] compelling and thought-provoking analysis of global trends.... Jacques is a superb explainer of history and economics, tracing broad trends with insight and skill

The West hopes that wealth, globalization and political integration will turn China into a gentle giant... But Jacques says that this is a delusion. Time will not make China more Western; it will make the West, and the world, more Chinese

A riveting and frankly alarming account of the state of the economy... I doubt I will read a more important book this year

I don't think I have ever needed a book more than I needed this book.

You will not be able to put this book down.

I inhaled it in one sitting. It made my shoulders drop three inches by the time I'd read the first chapter. Why? It is a permission slip to escape 'the achievement trap'.

Incredibly vivid

I've read lots of books about economics this last year. This is one of the very best... Superb

A fluent and indirect paean to Keynesian economics... this resonates with the contemporary turmoil in global financial markets

Ahamed unravels the story of the most terrible financial collapse in history from the perspective of the four men who were largely responsible: the leading central bankers in the United States, Britain, France and Germany

[a] very readable portrait of the bankers who allowed the Great Depression to happen

Possibly the most important political book that I have read since The Spirit Level

He has prised the lid off an important and terrifying can of worms

Lively and well written book

A welcome account of how the sun is never allowed to set on the British empire's old islands, whose fiscal pirates hoard the tax-free treasures of the rich

Shaxson delves into capitalism's secret nooks and tells us about how a culture of secrecy can perpetuate itself. Very interesting

A compelling read [...] an important and very much a live topic, it'll take you a few hours to read the book but it will be a worthwhile investment of time

What makes this such a good read for the layman is that the author employs all his journalistic skill (he used to work at Reuters) to illustrate his arguments and uses real examples to real examples to illustrate complex issues

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the world we live in

This engrossing book about the offshore banking racket, with its eye-opening scrutiny of tax havens and the suited scoundrels who profit from them, will make you think again about the murkier side of the City...This first-rate forensic work ends with a plea that the closed City "must be abolished and submerged into a...fully democratic London"

[An] informed polemic against finance capital

Now more than a decade old, this is still the best introduction to the world of tax havens