Crossing the Bridge between Specialized Knowledge and Breadth of Vision in Regard to Climate Change and Asia

It is remarkable how few commentators or analysts raised the alarm before the great financial crash of 2008. One who did was a journalist for the Financial Times called Gillian Tett. It may be germane to the understanding of why Gillian Tett perceived dangers in the reckless behavior of bankers that her colleagues did not, that she was educated not as an economist, but as a social anthropologist. In the course of earning her PhD in social anthropology, Tett spent a year milking goats in Tajikistan, an experience she insists helped her to understand the behavior of the bankers and other financial actors, and to predict the crisis, to widespread derision and hostility from bankers and treasury officials, two years before it happened.