This important and timely two-volume collection presents the key issues and processes that surround recent large-scale financial crises - in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere - and identifies procedures that will help to avoid and manage crises. The articles are drawn from leading journals in political economy, international relations, political science and economics. The reconstruction of the international financial architecture is identified as a working compromise which brings together neo-Keynesian and neo-liberal principles but which, in itself, cannot fully answer the challenges of systemic risk. Globalization processes contribute to systemic risk and complicate the efforts of the IMF and other international financial institutions to create order and stability. The Political Economy of Financial Crises will be invaluable to a broad interdisciplinary audience as a reference source to support teaching and research.