'Sensitive but to the point... clear and fair'

timely ... the analysis is startling

Collington and Mazzucato have provided a meticulously researched anatomy of an industry not widely understood by those outside it. They have explained complex ideas and processes in clear terms, and brought them to life with a rich and engaging narrative style. They have eschewed a simple narrow moral attack on a few parasitic firms in favor of a clear-eyed view of the industry's origins and drivers, and they have outlined the stakes for the future in no uncertain terms. That last is the most important. The Big Con may present itself as an exposé of the consulting industry, but behind it lies a bigger and more urgent warning to reshape social priorities in an age of crisis.

A shocking indictment of how, for decades, the consulting industry has made billions from public and private sources without providing much value for money. But it's an equally damning verdict on those institutions that have handed over these fortunes

Their point is that the great problem with the consulting business isn't so much one of corruption, but something else: consultants have wielded their expertise to give the impression of being indispensable. ... The book is intended in part as a rallying call for these companies and governments

compelling ... Mazzucato and Collington examine how this astonishing global rise in consultancy services came about. The clue is in the book's name-the big con ... the confidence trick arises from the ability to create an impression of value. ... Mazzucato and Collington are ready with what needs to be done: a new vision for the civil service; invest in internal government capacity and capability creation; embed learning and evaluation into contracts; and mandate transparency and exposure of conflicting interest.

As the title of this book implies, consulting is, at least in part, a confidence trick. A consultant's job is to convince anxious customers that they have the answers, whether or not that's true.

powerful ... The authors provide countless convincing examples of the danger of public overreliance on the consulting industry ... The Big Con puts forward a forceful argument about an issue about which most ordinary people know little but - given the enormous influence of the consulting industry - have a right to understand and scrutinise. An effective, important and highly readable book.

The Big Con of the book's title is not a crime; it's a confidence trick. Consultancies and outsourcers, Mazzucato argues, know less than they claim, cost more than they seem to, and - over the long term - prevent the public sector developing in-house capabilities

We are effectively devolving decision-making to people who are doubly unelected in many cases and whose own interests may diverge fairly dramatically from the collective interest or the interest that government is supposed to be pursuing.

Any government looking to rediscover its "vision, purpose and narrative" already knows who to call

The consultants may have different names ...and might perform different economic functions...but the effect they have on their client organisations is the same: to entrench short-term thinking, to deplete them of knowledge and skills, and, ultimately, to enfeeble them.

The power of government is crucial for driving the economy forward. But only if it retains capacity. Mazzucato and Collington have written a brilliant book that exposes the dangerous consequences of outsourcing state capacity to the consulting industry-and how to build it back. A fascinating look at the biggest players in the game and why this matters for all of us.

A powerful indictment of a dubious industry. This book should be read around the globe, and kickstart a debate that's long overdue: Do we really need all those consultants?

The Big Con documents, in precise detail and with panoramic vision, all the ways that the consulting industry has insinuated itself into the systems that govern and control our lives. Private companies, public charities and trusts, states, and even the international order have all handed mission-critical functions over to management consultants. Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington document the harms that result, as consultants exploit the public while stripping their clients of expertise and even the capacity to learn. This bill of particulars serves a profound master purpose: to demonstrate that we cannot outsource governance over our lives and still hope to remain prosperous, democratic, and free.

A management consultant,' the quip runs, 'is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time-and then keeps the watch.' This is the very least of the confidence tricks perpetrated by the global consulting industry it turns out. Another common saying is that 'nobody ever got fired for hiring McKinsey.' With the publication of The Big Con, they just might.

Doggedly researched and elegantly written, this is a fascinating entry point into a critical yet underreported issue

Stone's deeply humane account draws on an array of testimonies from some of the most observant and perceptive victims, and he uses these to devastating effect ... a well-written history of the Holocaust and its aftermath, with accomplished use of eyewitness accounts ... Dan Stone remains an important and eloquent voice in the field of Holocaust studies

A timely study of the holocaust that indicates the dangers of selectively misremembering it ... vital ... offers a detailed examination of the many roots of Nazism

A really fascinating and wonderful book, and beautifully written too. Not many writers could have pulled this off with such grace and elegance. You won't regret buying this one, for sure

Ypi excels at describing the fall and aftermath of Albanian communism from the perspective of her childhood . . . rich and remarkable

Essential reading. Lea Ypi's gorgeously written text - part memoir, part bildungsroman - tells a very personal story of socialism and postsocialism. Poignant and timely

Vital . . . an extraordinary memoir of social upheaval and historical change in 1990s Albania

A powerful and thought provoking memoir . . . wonderfully human, it is a story of missed opportunities, disillusionment and hope that ultimately invites readers to ask themselves what it means to be free

This vivid rendering of life amid cultural collapse is nothing short of a masterpiece

Remarkable and highly original . . . Both an affecting coming-of-age story and a first-hand meditation on the politics of freedom

A probing personal history, poignant and moving. A young life unfolding amidst great historical change - ideology, war, loss, uncertainty. This is history brought memorably and powerfully to life

Unique, insightful, and often hilarious. . . Albania on the cusp of change, chaos and civil war is the setting for the best memoir to emerge from the Balkans in decades

A lyrical memoir, of deep and affecting power, of the sweet smell of humanity mingled with flesh, blood and hope

Free is astonishing. Lea Ypi has a natural gift for storytelling. It brims with life, warmth, and texture, as well as her keen intelligence. A gripping, often hilarious, poignant, psychologically acute masterpiece and the best book I've read so far this year

Lea Ypi's teenage journey through the endtimes of Albanian communism tells a universal story: ours is an age of collapsed illusions for many generations. Written by one of Europe's foremost left-wing thinkers, this is an unmissable book for anyone engaged in the politics of resistance

This extraordinary coming-of-age story is like an Albanian Educated but it is so much more than that. It beautifully brings together the personal and the political to create an unforgettable account of oppression, freedom and what it means to acquire knowledge about the world. Funny, moving but also deadly serious, this book will be read for years to come

A new classic that bursts out of the global silence of Albania to tell us human truths about the politics of the past hundred years. . . It unfolds with revelation after revelation - both familial and national - as if written by a master novelist. As if it were, say, a novella by Tolstoy. That this very serious book is so much fun to read is a compliment to its graceful, witty, honest writer. A literary triumph

Illuminating and subversive, Free asks us to consider what happens to our ideals when they come into contact with imperfect places and people and what can be salvaged from the wreckage of the past

A young girl grows up in a repressive Communist state, where public certainties are happily accepted and private truths are hidden; as that world falls away, she has to make her own sense of life, based on conflicting advice, fragments of information and, above all, her own stubborn curiosity. Thought-provoking, deliciously funny, poignant, sharply observed and beautifully written, this is a childhood memoir like very few others -- a really marvellous book

Free is one of those very rare books that shows how history shapes people's lives and their politics. Lea Ypi is such a brilliant, powerful writer that her story becomes your story

Lea Ypi is a pathbreaking philosopher who is also becoming one of the most important public thinkers of our time. Here she draws on her unique historical experience to shed new light on the questions of freedom that matter to all of us. This extraordinary book is both personally moving and politically revolutionary. If we take its lessons to heart, it can help to set us free

I haven't in many years read a memoir from this part of the world as warmly inviting as this one. Written by an intellectual with story-telling gifts, Free makes life on the ground in Albania vivid and immediate

Lea Ypi has a wonderful gift for showing and not telling. In Free she demonstrates with humour, humanity and a sometimes painful honesty, how political communities without human rights will always end in cruelty. True freedom must be from both oppression and neglect

A funny and fascinating memoir

A rightly acclaimed account of loss of innocence in Albania from a master of subtext . . . Precise, acute, often funny and always accessible

A remarkable story, stunningly told

A vivid portrayal of how it felt to live through the transition from socialism to capitalism, Ypi's book will interest readers wishing to learn more about Albania during this tumultuous historical period, but also anyone interested in questioning the taken-for-granted ideological assumptions that underpin all societies and shape quotidian experiences in often imperceptible ways

A classic, moving coming-of-age story. . . Ypi is a beautiful writer and a serious political thinker, and in just a couple hundred readable pages, she takes turns between being bitingly, if darkly, funny (she skewers Stalinism and the World Bank with equal deadpan) and truly profound

Beguiling. . . the most probing memoir yet produced of the undefined 'transition' period after European communism. More profoundly a primer on how to live when old verities turn to dust. Ypi has written a brilliant personal history of disorientation, of what happens when the guardrails of everyday life suddenly fall away. . . Reading Free today is not so much a flashback to the Cold War as a glimpse of every society's possible pathway, a postcard from the future