Sebastián Edwards, The Chile Project: The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023. 343 pages. USD $27.49 (hardback)

Sebastián Edwards’s book The Chile Project is an outstanding review of the rise and fall of the pro-market consensus and the neoliberal project undertaken in Chile since the 1970s—which perhaps ended in October 2019 with riots and political protests—culminating in the radical left’s attempt to modify the Constitution. Edwards wonderfully combines economic history, Latin American politics, international economics, and the history of ideas, all interwoven to tell a compelling story of the peak and collapse of neoliberalism. Using analytic narratives and historical evidence, he tells the story of the implementation, deepening, and breakdown of the neoliberal consensus in Chile. Even with its economic lens, the book’s prose is so well-crafted, it reads almost as fluidly as a novel. …