In the Red explains why several prosperous developed countries accumulated so much public debt between the 1970s and the 2000s that they became vulnerable to sudden changes in financial markets and exposed themselves to the risk of default. It compares and contrasts the politics of debt accumulation in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Japan since the 1970s to identify factors that differentiate countries that accumulated dangerous amounts of debt from those that kept their debt under control. It challenges the received wisdom that persistent borrowing reflects the recklessness of governments who indebt their countries in order to please their voters in the short term. The book documents that policy makers invariably initiate painful adjustment measures to correct budgetary imbalances when debt grows at an alarming rate for several years in a row, but the success of adjustment attempts depends on the degree of social support for the spending cuts and/or tax increases proposed.