I have to.admit this review can only be incomplete as I did not have the opportunity to finish this book: I was abruptly told my version had expired and no longer had access to.it.

The book is supposed to be about 'lived experience' but I did not find it so. Maybe the case studies I was owing to in how austerity works in Education and in hospitals would have quoted more the experience of workers on the front line, but what I found myself reading up to this point was a.very- heavily annotated and scholarly set of essays critiquing academic social thinkers on austerity

Some of these were accessible - former UK Prime Minister Cameron's statements on why Welgarism is a Bad Thing that needs stamping out to make way for honest workers and tax payers (whom the writers remind the reader, did not benefit from post 2010 austerity measures). Opponents to Keysian approaches to reversing recession are critiqued extensively. There is the call for new engagement within a new class struggle in a new world where there is no middle class any more, just workers on insecure contract where unemployment is an ever-present spectre of incipient disaster.

Welcome to the world of what is called the 99%.. Mean old world, unless xou happen to be one of the very few super-rich who gets to call the tune was we continue to si g for our supper.

I did not reach the stages of the book where recommendations are reportedly made to oppose this new and infinitely more ubequal world.

This book was difficult to read, not because of the subject matter but because it complies so faithfully to academic writing. Everything is quoted and cross-posted and then footnoted. It is not something easily skimmed through. I have no doubt, however, that this book will be extremely useful for those who wish to steep themselves further in more recent analysis, Marxist or otherwise. It's comments on why it may be so difficult for most people to question the premises of austerity, even where these premises may be based on fundamentally flawed reasoning.

For that last factor alone I welcome writings such as this.. Other nay prefer to seek titles in this category that may be more accessible to the average 99% individual on the street without, of course, getting popularist about it.

First, thank you for giving me the chance of reviewing the book. I think it is a wonderful book. It definitely needs more attention than it already attracted. Perhaps "austerity" is still a far away concept in nowadays, it is rather the word that people will connect with their grandparents generation. But as the world develops, internationally, from various aspects, austerity emerges back to people's perspective. Second, this book is well organised, and especially well written. People don't feel the fatigue of academic writing while reading it. It covers economic aspects, politics, most importantly, populism is also covered. It fits to the nowadays world. I would recommend it to all academic fellows who are dealing with the same domain.