From the author of Crashed comes a gripping short history of how Covid-19 ravaged the global
economy and where it leaves us now When the news first began to trickle out of China about a
new virus in December 2019 risk-averse financial markets were alert to its potential for
disruption. Yet they could never have predicted the total economic collapse that would follow
in COVID-19's wake as stock markets fell faster and harder than at any time since 1929
currencies across the world plunged investors panicked and even gold was sold. In a matter of
weeks the world's economy was brought to an abrupt halt by governments trying to contain a
spiralling public health catastrophe. Flights were grounded supply chains broken industries
from tourism to oil to hospitality collapsed overnight leaving hundreds of millions of people
unemployed. Central banks responded with unprecedented interventions just to keep their
economies on life-support. For the first time since the second world war the entire global
economic system contracted. This book tells the story of that shutdown. We do not yet know how
this story ends or what new world we will find on the other side. In this fast-paced
compelling and at times shocking analysis Adam Tooze surveys the wreckage and looks at where
we might be headed next.
