Paragraph 1

"I’ve been following the economic crisis for more than two years now."

Explanation: The writer has been observing and studying the economic crisis for over two years.

"I began working on the subject as part of the background to a novel, and soon realized that I had stumbled across the most interesting story I’ve ever found."

Explanation: Initially, the writer explored the economic crisis to support a novel they were writing but soon found the topic incredibly fascinating on its own.

"While I was beginning to work on it, the British bank Northern Rock blew up, and it became clear that, as I wrote at the time, “If our laws are not extended to control the new kinds of super-powerful, super-complex, and potentially super risky investment vehicles, they will one day cause a financial disaster of globalsystemic proportions.”"

Explanation: During the early stages of research, Northern Rock collapsed, prompting the author to warn that unregulated complex financial tools could trigger a worldwide financial disaster.

"I was both right and too late, because all the groundwork for the crisis had already been done—though the sluggishness of the world’s governments, in not preparing for the great unraveling of autumn 2008, was then and still is stupefying."

Explanation: Although the author’s prediction was accurate, it came too late, as the financial crisis was already inevitable. The lack of proactive measures by global governments remains shocking.

"But this is the first reason why I wrote this book: because what’s happened is extraordinarily interesting."

Explanation: The main motivation for writing the book was the sheer intrigue and importance of the financial crisis.

"It is an absolutely amazing story, full of human interest and drama, one whose byways of mathematics, economics, and psychology are both central to the story of the last decades and mysteriously unknown to the general public."

Explanation: The crisis combines captivating personal and dramatic elements with complex subjects like math, economics, and psychology—topics that are central to recent history but unfamiliar to most people.

"We have heard a lot about “the two cultures” of science and the arts—we heard a particularly large amount about it in 2009, because it was the fiftieth anniversary of the speech during which C. P. Snow first used the phrase."

Explanation: The writer references a famous speech by C. P. Snow that highlighted the divide between scientific and artistic communities, a topic widely discussed in 2009 on its 50th anniversary.

"But I’m not sure the idea of a huge gap between science and the arts is as true as it was half a century ago—it’s certainly true, for instance, that a general reader who wants to pick up an education in the fundamentals of science will find it easier than ever before."

Explanation: The author questions whether the science-arts divide is still significant today, noting that it's now quite accessible for anyone to learn the basics of science.

"It seems to me that there is a much bigger gap between the world of finance and that of the general public and that there is a need to narrow that gap, if the financial industry is not to be a kind of priesthood, administering to its own mysteries and feared and resented by the rest of us."

Explanation: The author believes a bigger issue now is the gap between financial experts and the public. If left unaddressed, finance could become an elite, secretive world resented by ordinary people.

"Many bright, literate people have no idea about all sorts of economic basics, of a type that financial insiders take as elementary facts of how the world works."

Explanation: Even well-educated individuals often lack knowledge of basic economic principles that are second nature to finance professionals.

"I am an outsider to finance and economics, and my hope is that I can talk across that gulf."

Explanation: The writer does not belong to the finance world but aims to bridge the understanding gap between insiders and the general public.

Paragraph 2

"My need to understand is the same as yours, whoever you are."

Explanation: The author expresses that their curiosity and desire to understand the crisis is shared by everyone.

"That’s one of the strangest ironies of this story: after decades in which the ideology of the Western world was personally and economically individualistic, we’ve suddenly been hit by a crisis which shows in the starkest terms that whether we like it or not—and there are large parts of it that you would have to be crazy to like—we’re all in this together."

Explanation: It’s ironic that after years of promoting individualism in Western societies, the financial crisis exposed how interconnected and mutually dependent everyone actually is.

"The aftermath of the crisis is going to dominate the economics and politics of our societies for at least a decade to come and perhaps longer."

Explanation: The long-term consequences of the crisis will significantly influence the economy and political landscape for many years.

Paragraph 1 Summary

The author began studying the financial crisis while researching a novel and found it so compelling that it became the focus of a book. They emphasize the lack of regulation that led to the 2008 crash, express frustration at government inaction, and highlight the importance of making complex financial matters understandable to the public. The paragraph critiques the vast disconnect between financial insiders and the general public and states the author's goal of bridging that divide.

Paragraph 2 Summary

The author reflects on how the crisis revealed a deep interconnection in societies that prided themselves on individualism. They underline that the financial crisis has far-reaching implications that will shape both politics and economics for years to come, affecting everyone collectively.