The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

From Publishers Weekly:
The neo-liberal economic policies - privatization, free trade, slashed social spending - that the Chicago School and the economist Milton Friedman have foisted on the world are catastrophic in two senses, argues this vigorous polemic. Because their results are disastrous - depressions, mass poverty, private corporations looting public wealth, by the author's accountingótheir means must be cataclysmic, dependent on political upheavals and natural disasters as coercive pretexts for free-market reforms the public would normally reject. Journalist Klein (No Logo) chronicles decades of such disasters, including the Chicago School makeovers launched by South American coups; the corrupt sale of Russia's state economy to oligarchs following the collapse of the Soviet Union; the privatization of New Orleans's public schools after Katrina; and the seizure of wrecked fishing villages by resort developers after the Asian tsunami.

"Naomi Klein has written a brilliant, brave and terrifying book. It's nothing less than the secret histroy of what we call the ' free market'. It should be compulsory reading."
--Arundhati Roy

"The Shock Doctrine is the defining, covert history of our era, the work of a journalist embedded not with the militaries of the powerful, but with the poor, the tortured, and those who fight for justice against all odds."
--Jeremy Scahill