Noreena Hertz
The Silent Takeover (2001)[edit] In The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy Hertz warned that unregulated markets, corporate greed, and over-powerful financial institutions would have serious global consequences that would impact most heavily on the ordinary citizen. Hertz received a record six-figure advance from Random House for the book which, in pre-publicity, she promised would "make economics sexy." Although the book became a bestseller, it was not well-received when first published. Francis Beckett, for The Independent, later observed that the book "was lavishly praised and savagely attacked in equal measure" but had nevertheless "launched her as a new sort of thinker - the first prominent British radical left winger to come out of the business schools." Howard Davies, reviewing it for London's The Guardian newspaper, dismissed it as "globaloney", written in "a style beloved of airport-newsstand business books: random statistic piled on borrowed anecdote, larded with a bit of homespun cod philosophy, shaken not stirred." Tariq Ali, for The Independent, called the book "well-intentioned" but "a much milder version [of] three more vigorous North American texts that have already achieved cult status" (Naomi Klein's No Logo, Thomas Frank's One Market Under God and Kalle Lasn's Culture Jam.) Ali characterised it as neoliberal, "Third Way anti-capitalism" and concluded "What Hertz really wants is a government that can unite business interests with those of ordinary people - like expecting homoeopathic drops to cure a cancer." Will Self described the book as "superficially readable" but was critical of Hertz's ideology, calling it "an aggressive questioning of the pernicious status quo, but with only a febrile grasp on any potential solution - what used to be expected of a precocious adolescent, rather than a Cambridge assistant professor entering her mid-thirties." Frank Fitzgibbon, for The Sunday Times, described it as "well-written, colourful and sometimes entertaining" but ultimately "one long whinge, full of hackneyed observations... like a 212-page Guardian editorial on the venality of politicians, the evils of big business and the right-on credentials of concerned citizens." Responding to the book's advance publicity which said The Silent Takeover "provides a new and startling take on the way we live now", Fitzgibbon observed: "With the possible exception of a quote from Bhutan's king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck - "gross national happiness is more important than gross national product" - there is nothing in this book that is not already known to anybody with a passing interest in business and current affairs. It has all been said before but, to her credit, Hertz says it with style and with her telegenic looks she should be in demand on the chat-show circuit." Jennifer Szalai, for the New Statesman, wrote that the book was "at best, an anaemic objection to global capitalism" and pointed out: "For anybody who has read anything about corporations beyond their annual reports... the examples in this book are nothing new." Szalai described Hertz's "line of argument" as "a listless string of tired phrases, exposing her apparent ambivalence on the subject." IOU: The Debt Threat (2004)[edit] IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It comprised a study of debt in developing countries and provided Hertz's blueprint for development. Paul Kingsnorth, reviewing for the New Statesman, wrote: "Noreena is the Joanne Harris of political writing - and IOU, like its author, is all style and no substance." Kingsnorth said that her explanation of the debt issue was: "All fine, but also largely redundant, because this stuff has been circulating for years, and Hertz adds nothing new to the mix." He also found sections of the book "misleading" and noted that "her old employer the World Bank emerges with a curiously positive report card from a book about a problem it created almost single-handedly. The bank's former chief economist Larry Summers is represented as a passionate champion of the poor. Perhaps Hertz is not aware of the infamous internal memo that was leaked from the bank, in which this angelic man wrote: I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that... I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted..." He dismissed the book as simply "going through the motions" and "remarkably bad writing." Richard Adams, for The Guardian, wrote: "There is nothing here that will surprise readers of Susan George's 1988 book A Fate Worse than Debt, which remains the most forceful call for undoing the burden of the developing world." Hertz's proposed solutions were, he wrote, not well defined. "Some of her suggestions are patronising - setting up panels of international "overseers" for aid funding is a bit rich given her diatribes against external IMF and World Bank meddling - while