Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Preface
Austerity, a Personal History
1 A Primer on Austerity, Debt, and Morality Plays
Part One Why We All Need to Be Austere
2 America: Too Big to Fail?
Bankers, Bailouts, and Blaming the State
3 Europe-Too Big to Bail
The Politics of Permanent Austerity
Part Two Austerity's Twin Histories
Introduction to Chapters 4, 5, and 6
Austerity's Intellectual and Natural Histories
4 The Intellectual History of a Dangerous Idea, 1692-1942
5 The Intellectual History of a Dangerous Idea, 1942-2012
6 Austerity's Natural History, 1914-2012
Part Three Conclusion
7 The End of Banking, New Tales, and a Taxing
Time Ahead
Notes
Index

Mark Blyth is Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University. He is the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century.