"To understand the 2008 financial crisis, Neil Fligstein looks to the business models of the big US banks. He shows how firms got hooked on mortgages-originating them, securitizing them, selling those securities, and even buying the same securities. In time their addiction nearly collapsed the...

Market societies have created more wealth, and more opportunities for more people, than any other system of social organization in history. Yet we still have a rudimentary understanding of how markets themselves are social constructions that require extensive institutional support. This...