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Slouching Towards Utopia

J. Bradford DeLong

A sweeping economic history of how industrial growth transformed human life, why prosperity failed to become shared utopia, and what destabilized the modern order.

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19 parts, about 34 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • See how invention, corporations, and globalization transformed material life while leaving societies unable to agree on who prosperity should serve
  • Follow the political choices that shaped wars, depressions, social democracy, neoliberalism, and the unequal gains of modern economic growth
  • Understand why astonishing technological progress repeatedly failed to deliver stable, broadly shared security, and why the long twentieth century ended in disillusion

Who it is for

  • Readers of global economic history and political economy
  • People asking why growth did not create shared prosperity
  • Anyone tracing markets, states, technology, and inequality across modern history

What the summary covers

  1. The Long Twentieth Century2 min
  2. Globalizing the World1 min
  3. Revving Up the Engine1 min
  4. Democratizing the North1 min
  5. Global Empires2 min
  6. World War I2 min
  7. The Unsettled Peace1 min
  8. The Great Depression2 min
  9. Really Existing Socialism1 min
  10. Fascism and Nazism2 min
  11. World War II2 min
  12. The Cold War2 min
  13. Development in the Global South2 min
  14. Inclusion2 min
  15. Thirty Glorious Years2 min
  16. The Neoliberal Turn2 min
  17. Hyperglobalization and Information Technology2 min
  18. Great Recession and Weak Recovery3 min
  19. Are We Still Slouching Towards Utopia?2 min

Recommended by

  • Paul KrugmanNobel laureate in economic sciences
    A magisterial history…asks the right questions and teaches us a lot of crucial history along the way.
  • Diane CoyleBennett Professor of Public Policy at Cambridge
    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.
  • Adam ToozeProfessor of history at Columbia University
    If you want to follow the conversation right now on global economic history, you should check out Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia.

About the author

  • J. Bradford DeLongProfessor emeritus of economics at UC Berkeley and economic historian
    • Born on June 24, 1960; an American economic historian.
    • Received his bachelor's degree and doctorate from Harvard University in 1982 and 1987.
    • Joined UC Berkeley as an associate professor in 1993 and became a full professor in 1997.
    • Served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1993 to 1995.
    • Worked on the Clinton administration's 1993 budget, major trade agreements, macroeconomic policy and health care reform.
    • Previously taught at Harvard, Boston University and MIT, and held a fellowship at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
    • His research connects economic history with technological revolutions, growth, political economy, financial crises and the history of economic thought.

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