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Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. As Klein demonstrates, this reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn't just some relic from the bad old days. It's alive and well in contemporary society, and coming soon to a disaster area near you. "At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq'' civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves… Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly outsources the running of the 'War on Terror' to Halliburton and Blackwater… After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts… New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be re-opened." Klein not only kicks butt, she names names, notably economist Milton Friedman and his radical Chicago School of the 1950s and 60s which she notes "produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today." Stand up and take a bow, Donald Rumsfeld. There's little doubt Klein's book--which arrived to enormous attention and fanfare thanks to her previous missive, the best-selling No Logo, will stir the ire of the right and corporate America. It's also true that Klein's assertions are coherent, comprehensively researched and footnoted, and she makes a very credible case. Even if the world isn't going to hell in a hand-basket just yet, it's nice to know a sharp customer like Klein is bearing witness to the backroom machinations of government and industry in times of turmoil. --Kim Hughes
 Customer Reviews 
The Shock Doctrine
Rating: 5
This book should be a must read for everyone. It clearly reports the unbelievable practises of a small group of economists from THe Chicago School of Economics who staged wholesale disruption of countries such as Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, Uraguy and many more to forward Milton Friedman's ideas of a free market world.
The book is an expose of the Neocons who would rule the USA. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Reagan, and the thinktanks of The Cato Institute and others have this agenda in mind when they espouse their "Free Markets Economies" on the world.
It's a bit heavy going at first, but as you get further along it is hypnotic....a must read for all those concerned about freedom.
The Book of the Decade
Rating: 5
Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" is certainly the history/politics book of the year for 2007 and probably the book of the decade. She finds the common threads of history that run from the early 1970's to the early 2000's, showing how torture and terror have historically been closely connected to the economic doctrines of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys. She shows that merely opposing torture in the abstract, without studying the economic policies that give rise to torture, is inadequate.
Many books begin strong, and by about 1/3 of the way through, they lose steam. This superbly researched book continues producing strong chapter after strong chapter clear to the end.
The only weak chapter is the last, in which Klein calls for the US to take a third path---neither capitalist nor socialist but more like Sweden, as if the Shock Doctrines are a choice, and a kinder, gentler form of capitalism is a possibility. In reality, the drive to maximum profit is not an option but a mandate under capitalism, along with all that follows from this mandate. But the book is so strong and so thought provoking as it ties together everything from CIA brainwashing experiments to the overthrow of South American governments to Eastern European efforts to combat hyperinflation to the US government's non-response to Hurricane Katrina that it is a definite must read.
The most important book i've read in years, & i read a lot of books
Rating: 5
There really isn't anything i can add that hasn't been said by the other 200 reviewers. Only that there should be a 6th star to rate it & this is one of maybe 10 books in the entire amazon stock that would truly deserve it. I can only compare it to Leon Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed in the way it spells out so well what went so horribly wrong. For such information-packed writing it is a real "page-turner" with the bonus of ending with what i can agree is an accurately hopeful note.
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