These are the “Bocconi Boys” in Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, Mark Blyth’s narrative of how Europe has come to repeat the errors of the 1930s. Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna were the prophets of “expansionary fiscal contraction”, the idea that output loss from budget cuts can be trumped by greater gains in confidence. Their pep talk to EU finance ministers in April 2010 was seized on as the justification for all that followed.