Adam Tooze is a professor of history at Columbia University and the author of Crashed, winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize, a New York Times Notable Book of 2018, one of The Economist's Books of the Year, and a New York Times Critics' Top Book. He lives in New York City.
"This book’s great service is that it challenges us to consider the
ways in which our institutions and systems, and the assumptions,
positions and divisions that undergird them, leave us ill prepared
for the next crisis. . . . Whether we can overcome that
incoherence and meet the challenges ahead while protecting the
values at the heart of the American idea — freedom, pluralism,
democracy — is the essential question posed by Shutdown."—The New
York Times Book Review
"A seriously impressive book, both endlessly quotable and
rigorously analytical. Tooze synthesises a huge volume of
information to argue that we must prepare for a new wave of crises
or risk being sunk by them. Hopefully, governments everywhere will
heed his warning.”—The Guardian
"Offer insights and frameworks likely to be of enduring value… To
read Shutdown feels like sitting alongside the great professor
while he feverishly collates an array of data and anecdotes,
attempts to chronicle what is going on, his head fizzing with ideas
about what it might all mean and where it might be
leading."—Financial Times
"This is truly a picture of the global impact of the crisis; it
covers the disruption in the financial markets, as well as the ins
and outs of government policy. . . An impressively full account of
the economic developments of the past 18 months."—The Economist
"A primer on the mechanics of a global financial panic, the
techniques that central bankers deployed to contain it, and the
political events that ensued. Laced through these taut synopses is
a meditation on a grand historical question: Did 2020 mark the end
of the world economic order as we’d known it since 1980? And if so,
what precisely is taking neoliberalism’s place?"—New York
Magazine
"Tooze’s book offers readers a comprehensive and smartly written
summary of the economic impact of the coronavirus…Tooze briskly and
expertly recounts the tense weeks in March 2020 [and] routinely
compares the coronavirus shutdown to the 2008-2009 financial
crisis, [which] happens to make for apt comparisons, as few
previous economic and health disasters can match the scale and
global reach of this pandemic." —Washington Post
"[Tooze's] writing demystifies the world before us, dispelling the
cloud created by the chaotic motivations and invidious narcissism
of the market. Shutdown is one such cure, a book that answers so
many questions about the state of the world that it will leave its
readers feeling not just more learned but dizzy too. It is cliché
at this point to remark that after COVID-19, everything changed;
what Tooze illustrates masterfully in Shutdown is that the crisis
the virus unleashed began much earlier, the world order’s fragility
the product of a much longer process of mismanagement and
selfishness."—Vulture's "40 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This
Fall"
"Fascinating, informative, and wise...Tooze brings us to the brutal
reality of Covid: it was not about money...Shutdown concludes with
a plea for 'constant interplay of expertise and counter-expertise.'
It is a wake-up call for us to bridge that chasm." —Paul Collier,
Times Literary Supplement
"Adam Tooze makes a strong case for looking back, and beginning to
draw some conclusions. . . . His focus is the period that
started with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s public acknowledgement
of the coronavirus outbreak on Jan. 20, 2020, and ended with U.S.
President Joe Biden’s inauguration exactly a year later. The scale
and variety of what unfolded in the intervening days remains
dizzying. Tooze lucidly organises these events in the book’s 300
pages, while maintaining the sweeping perspective that will be
familiar to readers of Crashed."—Reuters
"A comprehensive history of an unprecedented year, Tooze’s account
describes how the pandemic played out politically across the globe,
the interplay between climate change and the pandemic, and the
myriad effects of the world economy nearly shutting down in a brief
period that, as Tooze puts it, made “History with a capital
‘H.’” Readers will find this deeply informed parsing of the
pandemic to be illuminating and thought-provoking."—Publishers
Weekly
"Economic historian Tooze examines the unprecedented decision of
governments around the world to shutter their economies in the face
of pandemic . . . As the pandemic hopefully continues to fade,
other crises remain. This book is a valuable forecast of future
problems."—Kirkus Reviews
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