After The New Economy

In this irreverent, witty and informative critique, economic journalist Doug Henwood scrutinizes the 1990s and brilliantly dissects the so-called "new economy", arguing that the delirious optimism of the day was really a manic set of variations on traditional themes.

He pokes fun at internet revolutionaries and other "techno utopians", and the intellectual frauds who claimed the US economy had reached a new age. Importantly, he also looks forward to what might come next, and mounts an argument for a more civilised and balanced form of economic and social governance.

Some of the exuberance surrounding the heady atmosphere of permanent growth and the dot.com inspired boom has disappeared with the bursting of the new-economy bubble and the scandals that emerged as the froth cleared: Enron, World.com, HIH Insurance and OneTel.

But what really happened? Why did the stock market go on an eighteen-yearbull run? Was there really a technological revolution? Is the world as borderless as everyone says? Did class distinctions really erode? Was corporate fraud really just a matter of a few bad apples - or was the rot far more pervasive than that? And what does the future hold in store?

Doug Henwood answers all of these questions in 'After The New Economy' in a precise, wickedly playful and entertaining, tongue-in-cheek style which reveals the truth behind the more extravagant entrepreneurial pretensions of the 1990s.