These are two interesting, controversial, complementary books. The authors are of different generations. John Perkins is sixty (2005). He was a college student during the Vietnam War who came to oppose the war, then joined the Peace Corps to avoid the draft. Noreena Hertz is thirty-six. She is an academic/activist, a professor of political economy who was tear-gassed at the massive Global Justice protest in Genoa (2001) at which hundreds were beaten by the Italian police and one protestor killed.