The book is fizzing with ideas but the reader has to wade through Mr Triana's verbose and convoluted prose, of which the final sentence is surely the most depressing example. "Deliciously paradoxically, the Nobel could end up diminishing, not fortifying, the qualifications-blindness and self-enslavement to equations-led dictums that, fifth-columnist style, pave the path for our sacrifice at the altar of misplaced concreteness."

Arguably, all this focus on derivatives and risk models ultimately misses the point. In the end, this financial catastrophe has been like every other; banks lent too much money during a property boom and now (together with the unfortunate taxpayers) they are paying the penalty. Andrew Gamble's "The Spectre at the Feast" sees the downturn as the latest in a series of capitalist crises. And he uses the word crisis, not in the short-term sense of a tabloid headline, but as an historical turning point when the economic system is remade, just as the Great Depression led to the adoption of social safety nets.

Mr Gamble, professor of politics at Cambridge University, offers a brisk tour of economic history over the past 30 years, and argues that the financial sector was the chief beneficiary of the "neoliberal" policies introduced by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The fact that governments have had to nationalise, or prop up, many of the leading banks suggests that a rethink is in order. Unfortunately, the author does not produce any startling insight on what that rethink might involve.

Of this pile, the book that best combines history, analysis and prescription is "Restoring Financial Stability", a series of essays by academics at New York University's Stern School of Business. The 60-page prologue is packed with telling facts and sophisticated analysis, and alone is worth the steep cover price. The individual chapters deal methodically with the myriad issues raised by the crunch, and the policy changes that will be needed, covering everything from the American mortgage market to the need for international co-operation in regulating finance.

... contd.