In the first half of 2015 Jeroen Dijsselbloem, then the Dutch finance minister and president of the Eurogroup, and Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, clashed loudly and publicly over Greece’s bailout programme. Who can forget that handshake? Last year Varoufakis published his account of his five-and-a-half month stint as Greek finance minister; “Adults in the Room: My battle with Europe’s deep establishment”, with the title leaving little to the imagination as to his argument. Last month Jeroen Dijsselbloem, one of the main pillars of “Europe’s deep establishment” in Varoufakis’ subtitle, published his own account of the euro crisis, titled rather less imaginatively “The Euro Crisis; The inside story”. An English Kindle edition is available but the old-fashioned physical book seems to only be available in Dutch so far.

These are two very different books. One is the story written by the winner, at times taking, not very subtle, victory laps. The other is the loser explaining how the establishment and weakness among his allies thwarted his otherwise fool-proof plans. This might explain why Dijsselbloem only uses 300 short pages to explain effectively the entire euro crisis, with only 40 pages dedicated to the Greece episode. In contrast, Varoufakis provides us with 500 pages of detailed breakdown of his short time in power, including three appendices (including one on his game theoretical framework). I’ll focus primarily on Dijsselbloem’s book (there are already some excellent reviews out there of Varoufakis’ book) and the differences between the two accounts of the first half of 2015.

Besides for the competing accounts of that notorious first half of 2015, the two books and the clash between the two writers are interesting because the two protagonists come from the European left. One is a self-described Marxist and the other a nominal social democrat (although Dijsselbloem reveals in the book that he joined Macron’s En Marche! shortly after it was established). Dijsselbloem’s views throughout the book are difficult to distinguish from those of someone like Schäuble, albeit without the clear desire to push Greece out of the euro zone.

Looking at the books themselves, Varoufakis is the clear winner and if you can read only one, read his. He is clearly a skilled writer and manages to construct a clear narrative using flowing prose. His opening sentence is “The only colour piercing the dimness of the hotel bar was the amber liquid flickering in the glass before him” and that describes a meeting he had with Larry Summers. Dijsselbloem’s writing is much more to the point and at times resembles a succession of interminable Brussels politician’s tweets: “I always had a constructive meetings with minister X based on mutual respect and shared values”. Yet one thing they have in common is that they don’t shy away from some humble bragging; Varoufakis paints himself as an international man of mystery even before assuming the position of finance minister while Dijsselbloem informs us that he made several appearances at the Peterson Institute, alongside a whole list of other events where only important people are invited. This quickly becomes rather tiring in both cases.