America’s economy is in meltdown. Banks have failed, foreclosures are sweeping the housing market, and stocks have suffered their worst losses since the Great Depression. Faced with a complex and spiraling crisis, the government has poured billions of taxpayer cash into a bailout with no end in sight. At every step of the way, The Nation , America’s oldest weekly magazine, has tackled the most urgent questions facing the nation’s leaders and its citizens with clarity and insight. Meltdown draws together nearly twenty years of the best of their coverage of the financial crisis and explores what steps President Obama and his new administration must take to ensure a more secure future for everyone. Contributors include:

William Greider on Alan Greenspan’s flawed ideology

Robert Sherrill on why the bubble popped

Thomas Frank on the rise of market populism

Christopher Hayes on the coming foreclosure tsunami

Barbara Ehrenreich on the implosion of capitalism

Kai Wright on how the subprime crisis is bankrupting black America

Naomi Klein on Bush’s final pillage

Joseph E. Stiglitz on Henry Paulson’s shell game

Jesse Jackson on trickle-down economics

Katrina vanden Heuvel and Eric Schlosser on why America needs a New New Deal