Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780465019595)

An instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from one of the world's leading economists, offering a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, but left us unsatisfied

"A magisterial history."--​Paul Krugman

Named a Best Book of 2022 by Financial Times * Economist * Fast Company

Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.

Economist Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.

Author: J. Bradford DeLong
ISBN-10: 0465019595
ISBN-13: 9780465019595
Publisher: Basic Books
Language: English
Published: 09/06/2022
Pages: 624
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.95lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 2.00d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/01/2022
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2022
Library Journal 09/09/2022 pg. 1