Looks at the ways that current dramatic shifts in the domestic and global economy have their roots in the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath, exploring novel themes in the way the crisis has played out for the past decade and will influence the future.
"We live in a world where dramatic shifts in the domestic and global economy command the headlines, from rollbacks in U.S. banking regulations to tariffs that may ignite international trade wars. But current events have deep roots, and, as award-winning historian Adam Tooze demonstrates, the key to navigating today's roiling policies lies in the events that started it all--the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. [This book] offers an eye-opening and necessary reinterpretation of the personalities, decisions, and policies that dominated economic, political, and international events of the last tumultuous decade, and yet have been widely misunderstood or minimized in the wake of "recovery." Despite initial attempts to downplay the crisis as a local incident, what happened on Wall Street beginning in 2008 was, in fact, a dramatic caesura of global significance that spiraled around the world, from the financial markets of the UK and Europe to the factories and dockyards of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. As Tooze deftly proves, it forced a major rearrangement of global governance. In the United States and Europe, it caused a fundamental reconsideration of capitalist democracy. It destabilized Ukraine, triggered chaos in Greece, forced the question of Brexit, and set the stage for the rise of Trump. It was the greatest crisis to have struck Western societies since the end of the Cold War, but was it inevitable? And is it over? [This book] reconstructs the story through a wealth of original themes: the haphazard nature of economic development and the erratic path of debt around the world; the unseen way individual countries and regions are linked together in deeply unequal relationships through financial interdependence, investment, politics, and force; the ways the financial crisis inter acted with the spectacular rise of social media, the crisis of middle-class America, the rise of China, and global struggles over fossil fuels. Finally, Tooze asks, given this history, what now are the prospects for a liberal, stable, and coherent world order? With a historian's eye for detail, connection, and consequence, he brings the story right up to today's negotiations, actions, and threats--a much-needed perspective on a global catastrophe and its long-term consequences."--Jacket.
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