The Global Minotaur

The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy is a book by economist and former Minister of Finance for Greece Yanis Varoufakis, first published in 2011 by Zed Books. A third edition was released in July 2015 with the updated subtitle America, the True Causes of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy. The book seeks to explain the origins of the 2008 financial crash through an analogy of the story of the Minotaur from Greek mythology. Specifically he argues that since the 1970s the United States have played the role of a Global Minotaur, consuming surplus capital from the rest of the global economy, and maintaining global economic stability in the process. He argues the 2008 crash can be understood as resulting from a potentially fatal wound inflicted on the Minotaur by the collapse of the banking system.