This is an important book for three reasons. First of all it reveals how most commentary on the financial crisis has been blinded by a dogma about financial markets. Secondly it shows persuasively how current financial institutions are the result not of some kind of inevitable process of evolution but of decisions made for discoverable reasons at watershed moments in history. And most importantly it offers a path towards genuine reform in which the first steps are completely practical given a sufficient political will.The key to that political will is a shared understanding of not just how the current financial system is set up to guarantee recurring crises but also how an alternative financial system is really possible. Much of the current commentary on the financial crisis seems to be an expression of stoical resignation in the face of the conviction that there is no way to prevent the bubble and bust cycles in financial markets. Regulations and policy may be able to tame them or nip around the edges, but oscillations are built into the nature of financial markets, and "innovative" financial wizards will always find a way to circumvent the latest regulations if not buy off enough politicians to do away with regulations altogether. Behind all this is the belief that financial markets are an essential requirement if the economy is going to work its wonders, a belief which Amato and Fantacci regard as dogmatic.How and why we have come to accept the necessity of financial markets as an article of faith is part of what the authors describe in the first section of the book. What is more important though is that they are able to find a perspective from which an alternative form of finance appears possible. Their initial analysis of the conceptual framework within which it is possible to think of "financial markets" leads to the dissection of three aspects of the function of money: money as a measure of value, money as a means of exchange and money as a store of value. Historical examples are cited to show that money in a given economy does not always conflate these three functions, and it is clear that only when money functions as a store of value is it possible to regard money as a commodity traded in a "financial" market.Most people would probably regard the suggestion that a modern economy can function without using money as a store of value a kooky utopian idea to be filed away well behind discredited schemes for a planned economy not relying on markets. The ideas of money, credit, and interest on which financial markets are founded seem given and beyond debate. They are part of the reality with which any economist must start if he hopes to make a contribution to our understanding of the crisis. The beauty of this book is that the authors do not merely open them up for debate but present them as the result of choices that were by no means inevitable. Their analysis results in a distinction between capitalism and a market economy, where capitalism is understood as a system in which money is a commodity whose price is determined by markets. One of the first questions an economist must answer is whether money is a tradable commodity, and one of the goals of the book is to explore the practical implications of saying it is not.There are several interesting reviews of this book on the UK Amazon website.