This tells the story of how close the world came to the brink of a total economic collapse last autumn. For the first time the key players tell how they battled to prevent a new great depression – and looks at what this has cost the world. Even today, few realise how close we all came to a truly catastrophic collapse of the very foundation of the modern world. The story is told by the people who took the decisions: Gordon Brown, Brazil's President Lula, finance ministers including the United States' Tim Geithner, Alistair Darling, Germany's Peer Steinbruck, France's Christine Lagarde, and Brian Lenihan from Ireland. Central bankers including Mervyn King and, for the first time, the behind-the-scenes officials tell the ups and downs of a month in which they held the fate of the world in their hands. How close did the world come to collapse?