The recent banking crisis overturned many preconceived perceptions and has shaken public confidence in the worlds financial system. This book is an informative, clear account of the recent economic crisis which explains global events and their consequences from a non-partisan point of view. Economic historian Larry Allen illuminates the interlocked economic processes that lay hidden beneath the crisis, describing and analysing the changing nature of the global financial system, central bank policies, housing bubbles, inflation rates, unemployment, commodity prices, government budgetary policies, deregulation and sovereign debt crises.