Edward LiPuma and Benjamin Lee. Financial Derivatives and the Globalization of Risk. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004 (224 pp. + xi)

Abstract

This book is a primer on financial globalization, specifically the emergence and operation of a particular set of complicated financial instruments that the authors see as signaling a far-reaching transformation of the domain conventionally referred to as “the economy:” derivatives. While derivatives have sometimes entered into public consciousness due to scandal, crises, and crime, the authors use derivatives as a window into the new everyday operations of global capital and the new normalcy of “systemic risk”—the risk that the entire international financial and banking architecture may implode.