Agree, or disagree, you should read this book... As the crunch intensifies these critics are out in force - and the most influential of their books will undoubtedly turn out to be this readable yet controversial tome

Well written and witty

Has withstood the test of time, despite being published before the events of this autumn - largely because the authors took such a pessimistic, not to mention dim, view of global finance in the first place...a rollicking, acerbic account of the bubble and its collapse

A superbly timed, trenchant analysis of the Anglo-American political culture that has turned the sober profession of banking into a supercasino where the house always wins

The arrogance of the view that the boom and bust cycle had been abolished, and the inevitability of the bust are vividly brought out in The Gods That Failed

Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson make a formidable team...Deploying a snappy style that keeps the reader's attention through complicated subject matter, they make their case with ease... this is still one of the sharper anti-market critiques available.

The conviction that the market will take care of everything went unchallenged until this summer - by the seemingly unlikely combination of two economics editors from the Guardian and the Mail on Sunday

In tragic-comic detail, they show how debacles like Northern Rock and banks lending non-existent money to customers has led to disaster for millions of ordinary people, one perpetrated by an unaccountable financial elite whom they dub The New Olympians

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

A triumph ... riveting ... a genuine page-turner

The very best book about this whole affair

If you read only one book about the causes of the recent financial crisis, let it be Michael Lewis's The Big Short

In the hands of Michael Lewis, anything is possible ... if you want to know how a nation lost its financial mind - and have a good laugh finding out - this is the book to read.

Magnificent ... a perfect storm of brilliant writer meeting big subject.

Brilliant

In this riveting, well-written expose, Shaxson goes deep into the largely unexamined realm of offshore money. In the process, he reveals that this shadow world is no mere sideshow, but is troublingly central to modern finance, with the US and the UK as leaders. The resulting abuses are widespread, ranging from tax revenue stripping from African nations to individuals and corporations escaping enforcement and accountability. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the hidden reasons why financial services firms have become so powerful and impossible to reform

They who sold us globalisation as a way of the whole world getting richer with fair rules, cheated us by letting the rich and powerful go "offshore". This gripping exposé should help end the scandal

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