: The Lexus and The Olive Tree Summary: Opening Scene: The World Is Ten Years Old. “ The trouble spread to one continent after another like a virus.” USA Today On December 8, 1997, the government of Thailand shut down 56 of their countries finance houses. These finance houses borrowed heavily in U.S. dollars and lent those dollars out to Thai businesses for the building of hotels, office blocks, luxury apartments and factories. Almost overnight, these private banks had …showed first 75 words of 2343 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2343 total…subject matter and it really can’t be compared to anything else, just because of the fact that it is so different from any book. It really grabbed my attention and held it the entire time I was reading it. It’s awesome to be able to read something and think that this book has something to do with the world I am living in, and that at any moment the world could change forever.