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Adults in the Room

My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"Leighton Pugh narrates this work as if it were an unsolved mystery...In a voice of nuanced emotion, Pugh creates muted characters to paint a vivid picture of what the author was up against as he tried to save his country." — AudioFile Magazine
A Number One Sunday Times Bestseller transformed into an illuminating, dynamic audiobook.

What happens when you take on the establishment? In Adults in the Room, renowned economist and former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis gives the full, blistering account of his momentous clash with the mightiest economic and political forces on earth.
After being swept into power with the leftwing Syriza party, Varoufakis attempts to re-negotiate Greece's relationship with the EU—and sparks a spectacular battle with global implications. Varoufakis's new position sends him ricocheting between mass demonstrations in Athens, closed-door negotiations in drab EU and IMF offices, and furtive meetings with power-brokers in Washington, DC. He consults and quarrels with Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron, Christine Legarde, the economists Larry Summers and Jeffrey Sachs, and others, as he struggles to relieve Greece's debt crisis without resorting to punishing austerity measures. But, despite the mass support of the Greek people and the simple logic of Varoufakis's arguments, he succeeds only in provoking the fury of Europe's elite.
Varoufakis's unvarnished memoir is an urgent warning that the economic policies once embraced by the EU and the White House have failed—and spawned authoritarianism, populist revolt, and instability throughout the Western world.
Adults in the Room is an extraordinary tale of brinkmanship, hypocrisy, collusion, and betrayal that will shake the global establishment to its foundations.
A must-listen for anyone interested in current events and the delicate web of global economics.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      This audiobook walks listeners through one of the most perilous events of the second decade of this century--the effects of the global financial crisis on Greece and how close the country came to bankruptcy and ruin. Leighton Pugh narrates this work as if it were an unsolved mystery. The author was Greece's finance minister, and his account of how global powers treated him and his country is harrowing and eye opening. Speaking with a British accent, Pugh turns what might have been a dry collection of facts into a morality tale with heroes and villains. In a voice of nuanced emotion, Pugh creates muted characters to paint a vivid picture of what the author was up against as he tried to save his country. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 16, 2017
      Former Greek finance minister Varoufakis, a highly unorthodox, colorful, and fearless figure, here chronicles his and his country’s battles with the leaders of the troika (the European Commission, the EU’s executive body; the European Central Bank; and the International Monetary Fund) during the 2014–2015 stages in his country’s ongoing debt crisis. He blasts the European powers-that-be for what he calls “Bailoutistan,” whereby several huge loans allegedly for Greece’s benefit largely went to the country’s creditors. Meanwhile, under the troika’s austerity regimen, the country’s net income dropped. Varoufakis extensively documents his clashes and periodic, almost always abortive attempts at cooperation with troika leaders, most interestingly with imperious German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble. His subtitle is misleading, as there’s little here about America’s leaders and nothing about its “deep establishment” (a term Varoufakis leaves unexplained); this is a book about intra-European economic battles. Unfortunately, Varoufakis sometimes doesn’t explain arcane terms—how many readers will know what “EFSF debt” refers to? He is also prone to providing excessive detail, making this otherwise illuminating account far too long for all but those with a passionate interest in EU economic affairs in general and the seemingly interminable Greek debt crisis in particular.

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  • English

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