The age of turbulence: adventures in a new world

By pure chance, two significant books on capitalism were published within weeks of one another in the early fall of 2007. The first (The Age of Tur bulence: Adventures in a New World), by the consummate insider, Alan Greenspan, examines the inner workings of the capitalist system from the perspective of one who was perhaps as responsible as anyone for its spectacular successes in the 1990s. The second (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism), by activist outsider Naomi Klein, chronicles capitalism's excesses and its dark side. Each author approaches capitalism and globalization from a completely different perspective. For Greenspan, globalization presents challenges but also a whole spectrum of opportunities for increased prosperity and the improvement of the human condition. Klein views capitalism and glo balization as evolving in ways to present greater and greater threats and obstacles to these goals. Greenspan's view of the world from the seat of power is remarkably optimistic: .. .we are living in a new world?the world of a global capital ist economy that is vastly more resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world: how we got here, what we are living though and what lies over the horizon for good and for ill (pp. 10-11). This is the third in Klein's trilogy of anti-capitalist, anti-globalist books. Her first was No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (2000), which