"... and so Milton Friedman walked into the flames, sprouted horns and a tail, and chuckled sinisterly to himself about the destruction he had wrought." Naomi Klein would have been better to have ended her well researched but utterly unconvincing tome in this way, as her central premise - that Friedman and the Chicago School of monetarist economists are responsible for most of the world's evils the past 40 years - is utter fiction.

Klein has meticulously footnoted (nearly 1,000) her work, drawing extensively from the past four decades of press, and recounts in chilling detail the abuses and horrors of that period's economic and political upheaval, and of its personal suffering (torture including electric shocks): Latin America, including the dictatorships of Argentina and Chile; Eastern Europe, including Poland and Russia's transitions to democracy; Asia, including Indonesia's Suharto era and China's Tiananmen Square massacre; the transition from apartheid in South Africa; and even some events in the US (Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans) and the UK (coal miners' strike and the Falklands war).

It's hard to imagine a common thread between these events, but Klein asserts that they all share the "Shock Doctrine"; the forced imposition of major societal change based on events so dramatic the populace loses all resistance. These events may be natural disasters (Katrina), political revolutions (both too and from democracy), or state sponsored terror (civilian disappearances and torture), but in each case their common element is Friedman's economic policies which were designed to cause or enhance the "shock".

In Klein's view, the Chicago School economic policies ("radical free markets" in her words) are directly responsible for the longevity of dictatorships (Pinochet), the quick demise of nascent democratic governments (Poland, Russia), the economic hardships of working people (everywhere), the increasing inequity between wealthy and poor (everywhere), and the transfer of wealth from sovereign countries to western multinational companies (no mention of the opposite via soveriegn wealth funds).

Unfortunately Klein spends very little time on the Monetarists' economic underpinnings, why they believed theirs was the best economic policy, how it differed from Keynes' views (who she refers to often, but again with very little economic insight), or what economic policies she would prescribe instead. This book ends up as just a litany of the world's evils. Klein is also inconsistent in her views. She rails against the IMF for loaning funds irresponsibly to developing nations, but later complains when it doesn't lend funds to other countries. She points out the terrible impact of high inflation, then complains about the high interest rate policies implemented to combat it.

There's no denying the terrible events during this period, that economic policies played a major role and that those same policies may drive economic growth to the benefit of the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. As a recounting of this history, "The Shock Doctrine" delivers the goods. As a cogent argument to support a thesis, the book is a complete failure. For a more compelling, thoughtful and believable critique of Friedman, see Hyman Minsky's "Stabilizing an Unstable Economy", which is all thought and no news clippings.

Excellent book that will educate you on the real ways of politics and economic reform in the modern world. This book will also give some insight as to why the world views the USA as it does and perhaps offer some idea's for change. Capitalism at its finest.

The shock therapy advocated by neoliberal conservatives in the US is well-documented in most academic circles but Naomi Klein expands the criticisms to a wider much more general audience in "The Shock Doctrine".

The book is long by most popular non-fiction standards and certainly she stretches her argument in a few cases to make her point, but overall the book is well-researched with the sections on Iraq and New Orleans being the most effective.

The backlash against Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics is perhaps the greatest where it's effects were felt the most, namely in Latin America. Almost every single country has not rejected neoliberalism led by leftists such as Chavez in Venezuala.

If you are unaware of Milton Friedman, the Washington Concensus and the Chicago School of Economics, this book will be an eye-opener for sure.

It's the economy, stupid.

Do you have any idea of how much terror represents as a business?. Well, I didn't. After the economic "e-bubble" ended some years ago, the option at hand to push the economy was terror...

In this latest, well documented N. Klein's book, beginning in Montreal with the CIA's mind experiments back in the 50's, you'll be taken by the hand in tour from the University of Chicago campus to Buenos Aires, Santiago, La Paz, Caracas, New Orleans, New York, Beirut, Tel Aviv, etc. and to practically every place on Earth, that from those days, has represented an opportunity to put into practice what the author calls the "destruction capitalism" practices or M. Friedman's ideas on how to end (once and for all) with keynisian economics in the world, thanks to natural or man's created catastrophes.

An interesting interpretation to the most significant economic, political, social, cultural, etc. events in our world for the past 50 or 60 years... and a brilliant analogy between 1950's CIA's attempts to "erase" the mind of individuals to "recreate it" and attempts to "shock" economic systems to profit out of them...

Also shocking is Klein's disclosure of Latin America as an "economic shocking therapy" laboratory beginning with Chile's coup / Allende's killing back in '73.

Then, I found particularly fascinating Klein's explanation on the consequences (political and economic) of the Berlin's wall fall back in '89 (trust me, it's nothing to do with what thought you knew).

The upcoming described world, is to say the least, scary as hell. A kind of "Big Brother" world divided by walls, monitored by state of the art devices, and most of all, composed of very rich and very poor people... being only the first the ones who can pay for efficient healthcare, security, decent food, etc.

You cannot miss this book.