Paperback: The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein

Though necessarily US-centred, this latest polemic from the author of No Logo is a compelling account of the way big business and politics use global disasters for their own ends. Plunging right in with a post-Hurricane Katrina soup kitchen and Milton Friedman's villainous reforms, it is easy to be carried away by her rhetoric – as, occasionally, is she. But this is more than just Leftist ranting – as the "reconstruction" of Iraq continues to prove.