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Meltdown Iceland
Book

Meltdown Iceland

Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island

Roger Boyes
Bloomsbury USA, 2009

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening
  • Background

Recommendation

Most people aren’t familiar with Iceland, an isolated, homogenous, near-Arctic island. Now, thanks to Roger Boyes’s wonderfully told tale of its financial collapse, readers can learn what happened to the economy, politics and culture of this unusual, mostly-frozen nation. Iceland was the unlikely first victim of the 2008 global financial collapse – the actual canary in the coal mine. Its financial excesses, cronyism and poor governance serve as a microcosm of the problems facing large capitalist nations. Boyes’s financial case study flows like a novel. He is unafraid to draw biting conclusions from his detailed presentation: here, villains are villains, greed is greed, names are named. This fast-moving story puts the global fiscal meltdown into perspective: the 2008-2009 international economic crisis began in this lone, cold outpost and then burst into global flames.

Take-Aways

  • The 2008 world financial crisis began in Iceland.
  • Prime Minister David Oddsson used Reagan-style policies and privatization.
  • Privatization of the banking sector created a new elite and rampant cronyism. 

About the Author

Roger Boyes is an award-winning correspondent. He has written about Western and Eastern Europe for the past 30 years for the Financial Times and the Times of London. He has been reporting from Iceland since 1976, when he went there to cover on the Cold War.

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