Greece's 'Odious' Debt

Reviews / Votes

'The author, who is also a founder of an emerging-market hedge fund, sets out to analyze the Greek fiscal crisis and its larger reverberations. [...] This is a brave, complicated and timely book.' -Nancy F. Koehn, 'The New York Times' '[An] excellent study both of the eurozone and of the Greek case by Jason Manolopoulos, Greece's 'Odious' Debt (Anthem Press). He shows conclusively that the eurozone is far from an optimum currency area.' -Samuel Brittan, 'Financial Times' 'There have been plenty of books about the Wall Street crisis of 2008 but fewer, to date, about the sovereign crisis that followed it. So it is good to be able to recommend Jason Manolopoulos's work, 'Greece's "Odious" Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community'. [...] Mr Manolopoulos is actually a hedge fund manager who takes a very clear-headed view of the crisis. [...] The combination of a currency link and weak economic policies doomed Greece to its eventual crisis. But the author entertaining[ly] recounts the long series of denials by EU officials, Greek politicians and investment banks.' -Philip Coggan, 'The Economist' '...[One] of the first to immerse into the Greek debt crisis in an intelligible manner. [...] [Manolopoulos's] book is to be recommended to anyone who is endeavouring to picture the Greek misery to its whole extent.' -Norbert Haerin, 'Handelsblatt' 'Most of us are familiar with bits of the story and aware of the social and economic strains in Greece itself. But until now there has been no straightforward analysis of the sequence of events that led to the collapse, still less a sketch of how the story might end. Manolopoulos is a Greek hedge fund manager, and so doubly qualified to provide this. [...] The author is tough on Greece but he is also tough on Europe. The euro was mis-sold and the temporary bail-out has made matters worse.' -Hamish McRae, 'The Independent' 'Blunt, rigorous and shrewd, Manolopoulos resembles a wise uncle explaining how a ne'er-do-well cousin gambled away the family's future: He spares his compatriots no embarrassment, yet recalls in memorable detail how fickle German friends and French moneylenders egged them on.' -James Pressley, 'Bloomberg' 'As with so much economic history, Manolopoulos reveals just how many factors, and negligent hubristic individuals, helped cause the monumental disaster. He is even-handed in apportioning blame - everyone carries some.' -David Walker, 'Investment Week' 'Jason Manolopoulos's new tome is an enjoyable romp through the story of how Greece got caught out in the international economic crisis.' -Business Diary, 'The Independent'