Book excerpt: The book aims to give non-economists a detailed understanding of how macroeconomic policy works in modern economies, and the issues it faces. The world has recently been through a huge economic crisis and thinking people everywhere have reason to wonder whether something is not seriously wrong with the policy regimes underlying these dramatic events in the major economies, and whether changes should be made. The author reviews the history of the successive regimes tried and found wanting in the second half of the last century and proposes a set of reforms designed to convert the flawed neo-liberal consensus of the 1990s into a durable regime for the present century.