Publishers Weekly
★ 08/01/2022
Spectacular economic growth in the long 20th century fueled visionary hopes, but never quite fulfilled them, according to this sweeping study. UC Berkeley economic historian DeLong (coauthor, Concrete Economics) surveys the period from 1870 to 2010, an era when, he argues, advances in global shipping, vertically integrated corporations, and new technologies hatched in industrial research labs created an unprecedented rise in productivity that for the first time raised humanity out of poverty. It was also a period when economic theories and crises drove history, from the pursuit of a communist utopia in the Soviet Union to the Great Depression that propelled Hitler to power in Germany. Beneath the century’s upheavals, DeLong sees a perennial tension between economic theorists Friedrich von Hayek, who anathematized state interference in free markets, and Karl Polanyi, who insisted that state intervention is needed to protect society from the disruptions of profit-maximizing market economies. (DeLong blames Hayekian market fundamentalism for dissuading the U.S. government from undertaking enough deficit spending to spur recovery from the Great Recession of 2008.) The author conveys a wealth of information in elegant, accessible prose, combining grand, epochal perspectives with fascinating discursions on everything from alternating-current electricity to the gender wage gap. The result is a cogent interpretation of economic modernity that illuminates both its nigh-miraculous achievements and its seething discontents. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
A Financial Times Best Economics Book of 2022
“A magisterial history…asks the right questions and teaches us a lot of crucial history along the way.” —Paul Krugman
“I’ve been waiting for Brad [DeLong]’s big economic history opus for a long time now.” —Ezra Klein
“An unmissable book…The strength of the book—as well as its immense scope and depth…is that it’s a work of political economy, braiding the different strands of ideas, Hayek, Polanyi and Keynes…Definitely one to read.”—Diane Coyle
“If you want to follow the conversation right now on global economic history, you should check out Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia.”—Adam Tooze, on The Ezra Klein Show
“A masterfully sweeping account…a joy to read. Few economic historians have as fluent a grasp of political or military history or, more important, write as lucidly and with such great flair about these subjects.” —Liaquat Ahamed, Foreign Affairs
“A magisterial new economic history.”—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times
“A masterpiece.” —Zachary D. Carter, Dissent
“Slouching Towards Utopia is an impressive achievement, written with wit and style and a formidable command of detail.” —The Economist
“Comprehensive, beautifully written, and fun to read.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Impressive.”—Commonweal
“DeLong explores the slice of history he has chosen – the ‘long twentieth century’ from 1870 to 2010 – in depth, and he often writes with verve combined with thought-provoking detail.” —The Daily Telegraph
“This is a brilliant and important book. It offers an original and penetrating analysis of what its author calls ‘the long twentieth century,’ the period of unprecedented economic advance that began roughly in 1870 and ended, he asserts, in 2010. Material abundance poured upon humanity. Previous generations would have thought such wealth to be a guarantee of utopia. Yet the age of material progress has ended not in a utopia, but in recrimination and discord. No book has explained the successes and failures of this extraordinary period with comparable insight.”—Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator, Financial Times
“Worries that the future will be worse than the present are an excellent reason to read economic histories such as Bradford DeLong’s new book, Slouching Towards Utopia.”—Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed
“DeLong written the most entertaining End Times narrative since The Late Great Planet Earth.”—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
“Deeply engaging…a work of strikingly expansive breadth and scope.”—Benjamin M. Friedman, Harvard Magazine
"A fantastic read…you don’t have to be an economist or historian to enjoy this book or reach for the smelling salts to revive you from boredom.”—Patrick Luciani, The Hub
“[The book] does what all the best nonfiction books do: change the way you understand the world around you.” —Nathan Baschez, Every
“One of the most ambitious and admirable economic history books of the year...DeLong is a guide whose conclusions I cannot fault.” —Strategy + Business
“A compelling and engagingly written account.” —Gregory Brew, H-DIPLO
“This volume, partly an economic history but mostly a thorough record of the global economy’s connection with politics, is destined to become a classic in its category.”—Library Journal
“The author conveys a wealth of information in elegant, accessible prose, combining grand, epochal perspectives with fascinating discursions on everything from alternating-current electricity to the gender wage gap. The result is a cogent interpretation of economic modernity that illuminates both its nigh-miraculous achievements and its seething discontents.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“[T]he author ably anatomizes his subject with admirable clarity, offering accessible and illuminating explanations of key historical shifts and the socio-economic forces driving them… A sprawling but carefully argued, edifying account of modern economic history and its impact on global well-being.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Brad DeLong learnedly and grippingly tells the story of how all the economic growth since 1870 has created a global economy that today satisfies no one’s ideas of fairness. The long journey toward economic justice and more equal rights and opportunities for all shall and will continue.”
—Thomas Piketty, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
“What a joy to finally have Brad DeLong’s masterful interpretation of twentieth-century economic history down on paper. Slouching Towards Utopia is engaging, important, and awe-inspiring in its breadth and creativity.”
—Christina Romer, University of California, Berkeley
“History provides the only data we have for charting a course forward in these turbulent times. I have not seen a more revealing and illuminating book about economics and what it means in a very long time. Slouching Towards Utopia should be required reading for anybody who cares about the future of the global system, and that should be everyone.”
—Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard University
“An intellectually exciting and entertaining gallop along the arc of twentieth-century economic history. Brad DeLong puts together the puzzle of the past to tell a story of remarkable achievements as well as setbacks. A great way to understand the forces that have shaped the world today.”
—Minouche Shafik, director, London School of Economics and Political Science
“The period 1870–2010—what Brad DeLong calls the ‘long twentieth century’—saw the world break decisively free of its Malthusian chains, with levels of per capita economic growth without any parallel in human history. This wonderfully researched and written book explains the roots of this vertiginous ascent towards utopia, while also exposing the causes of the subsequent flat-lining in our economic fortunes and what action is now needed to ensure the long century is viewed by future historians as the historical rule, not the exception.”
—Andrew G. Haldane, former chief economist, Bank of England
Library Journal
★ 09/09/2022
DeLong (economics, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Macroeconomics) believes the 140 years from 1870 to 2010 were the most progressive in human history. Delong asserts changes began in 1870 when industrial research laboratories, advanced technology, and the modern corporation were created, becoming the foundations for organizations and research to progress to full globalization. This book shows that the history of the 20th century is made up of several things: technologically fueled growth and globalization, which progressive Americans had the confidence would also help governments with their political and economic problems. VERDICT This volume, partly an economic history but mostly a thorough record of the global economy's connection with politics, is destined to become a classic in its category. Social sciences and history collections would benefit the most from this book.—Claude Ury
Kirkus Reviews
2022-07-13
A survey of the monumental transformations—and failed promises—brought about by an extraordinary rise in prosperity.
DeLong, a Berkeley professor of economics, offers a sweeping account of economic history over the “long twentieth century”—1870 to 2010. Those years, he argues, were “the most consequential years of all humanity’s centuries,” in which “the most important historical thread was what anyone would call the economic one, for it was the century that saw us end our near-universal dire material poverty.” The book’s “grand narrative” charts how, in response to increased globalization and the development of modern research facilities and corporate business structures, wealth increased remarkably for a large proportion of the world’s population, prompting radical changes to long-standing social and political configurations. As the author’s mix of close economic analyses and illustrative “vignettes” demonstrates, this upsurge in prosperity incited utopian dreams but repeatedly failed—sometimes spectacularly—to realize them. At the end of the period in question, DeLong concludes, optimism about progress in eliminating extreme poverty and more equitably distributing wealth was at a low ebb, and faith in America as a leader in such efforts is in marked decline. This is a lengthy text, and some of the chapters meander unnecessarily, but overall, the author ably anatomizes his subject with admirable clarity, offering accessible and illuminating explanations of key historical shifts and the socio-economic forces driving them. Among the most gripping and persuasive chapters are those that explain the acceleration of globalization in the late 19th century, the causes of the Great Depression (and what might have mitigated it), and the origins and implications of the rise of neoliberalism at the end of the 20th century.
A sprawling but carefully argued, edifying account of modern economic history and its impact on global well-being.
