Helen Thompson is a professor of political economy at Cambridge University in the UK. She was one of the panelists of the well-regarded Talking Politics podcast sponsored by the London Review of Books which ran regularly 2016-2022. Her book Disorder is a moderately long and dense (under 300 pages in a small typeface, with extensive endnotes) work exploring the end of Ottoman Empire after 1918, the development of petroleum (including natural gas) in western Eurasia in the 20th century, pipelines, international finance of oil and gas development, the economics and politics of shale gas in the USA since 1970, currency trading, the role of the USA dollar in trade, the evolution of the European Union, the history of the Euro currency, the tensions in the politics of the dominant member nation states in western Europe, Brexit, democratic politics, populism, and more. It is informative on topics discussed in the news as if journalists and citizens understood these issues. It is a useful book to make sense of some recent history. It is a difficult book for persons not already immersed in the relevant academic fields or in the debates of modern politics.. ( )