The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict - Softcover

Stiglitz, Joseph; Bilmes, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141036524 ISBN 13: 9780141036526

Publisher: Penguin, 2009

Synopsis

The Three Trillion Dollar War is a devastating reckoning of the true cost of the Iraq war - quite apart from its tragic human toll - which the Bush administration estimated at $50 billion, but which Stiglitz and Bilmes show underestimates the real figure by approximately six times. The authors expose the gigantic expenses which have so far not been officially accounted for, the cost of caring for thousands of wounded veterans for the rest of their lives. With chilling precision, they calculate what the money spent on the war would have produced had it been further invested in the growth of the economy, in the US and around the world, and in infrastructure building. Stiglitz and Bilmes write in simple language, which makes the details they present, and the sums they add up, all the more disturbing.

About this title

Review:

'If you have to trust somebody in matters of economics, you could do worse than a Nobel Prize-winning former chief economist of the World Bank ... the superb achievement of this book, however, is how little you do have to take on trust' - Sam Leith, Telegraph

About the Author:

Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. He is currently University Professor of the Columbia Business School and Chair of the Management Board and Director of Graduate Summer Programs, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 and is the author of the best-selling Globalization and Its Discontents, The Roaring Nineties, and Making Globalization Work, all published by Penguin.

Linda J. Bilmes is a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University. During the Clinton administration, she served as Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141036524
• ISBN 13: 9780141036526
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384