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SLOUCHING TOWARDS UTOPIA

J. Bradford DeLong

An Economic History of the Twentieth Century

From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied.
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.

J. Bradford DeLong, an economic historian, is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Clinton administration. He writes a widely read economics blog, now at braddelong.substack.com. He lives in Berkeley, California.
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Published 2022-09-06 by Basic Books

Comments

Fortune has run a 3rd piece on Brad DeLong and the book!: "Why you should be happy about inflation and worried about something else, top economist Brad DeLong says"... Read more...

Brad DeLong, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley joins the Essential Podcast to discuss his ambitious and controversial new book Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century. Read more...

Paul Krugman's NYT Opinion subscriber newsletter titled "Technology and the Triumph of Pessimism" focused on SLOUCHING TOWARDS UTOPIA! The book is a magisterial history of what DeLong calls the 'long 20th century,' running from 1870 to 2010, an era that he says - surely correctly - was shaped overwhelmingly by the economic consequences of technological progress. ...his book definitely asks the right questions and teaches us a lot of crucial history along the way Read more...

Brad DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia," which is, I think, a really remarkable and powerful placing of all of economic history in perspective, that gives a sense that at some level I had known but never appreciated of how profoundly different the 20th century was than all other centuries... I think anybody who wants to propound about economic policy should read that book.

This week in Say More, PS talks with J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century. Read more...

The conversation on Tuesday's episode of the NY Times's Ezra Klein Show concluded with Klein and guest Larry Summers sharing their enthusiasm for Brad DeLong's forthcoming SLOUCHING TOWARDS UTOPIA! Read more...

Brad DeLong manages brilliantly to combine detailed analysis of a huge sweep of global history with an accessible and engaging narrative. The result is a book full of well-founded and penetrating insights that will appeal to anyone interested in the causes and consequences of modern economic growth.

"Slouching Towards Utopia" is a tale of stunning material progress - and of its limits... an impressive achievement, written with wit and style and a formidable command of detail. ..."Slouching Towards Utopia" shows how economic growth can transform the world. It also demonstrates that material prosperity alone cannot transport people to the promised land. The future may well be shaped by fights about what can.

"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."

"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."

Excerpt: The Long 20th Century Comes to a Shuddering End: An era of once-undreamt-of progress is over - and you won't like what comes next. Read more...

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.

[DeLong has] written the most entertaining End Times narrative since The Late Great Planet Earth. Read more...

[a] magisterial new economic history. Read more...

In a world of relentless, high-velocity news, sometimes it pays to take a step back and look at the big picture. Our guest this week, the US economist Brad DeLong, does that with some aplomb in his new book 'Slouching Towards Utopia', a sweeping survey of economic development from the late 19th century to the present day, and an attempt to work out how we've ended up in this period of roiling economic crises... Read more...

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. Read more...

Stephanie speaks to University of California, Berkeley economist Bradford DeLong about his new book, Slouching Towards Utopia... Read more...

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. Read more...

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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. Read more...

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. Read more...

The period 18702010 - 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.

"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."

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. Read more...

Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers and Brad DeLong, U.C. Berkeley Professor of Economics dig into DeLong's book "Slouching Towards Utopia" and what economic lessons can be learned from the past 100+ years. Read more...

J. Bradford DeLong is here to deliver on the title of his impressive tome Slouching Towards Utopia Read more...

I feel like I've been waiting for Brad's big economic history opus for a long time now. So I will agree that I'm very excited for that one to hit my desk.

deeply engaging... a work of strikingly expansive breadth and scope. Read more...

Bestseller Listings: #4 Wall Street Journal Hardcover Business #4 Toronto Star Business and Personal Finance #6 New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction #6 New York Times Combined Nonfiction Print & eBook #16 Publishers Weekly Hardcover Nonfiction frontlist #131 USA Today Books

What changes occurred in 1870 that changed the course of human history more than the previous three thousand years? What happened in 2010 to slow that growth? J. Bradford "Brad" DeLong, Berkeley economics professor & former Treasury official, joins today's conversation on the heels of his latest book release, "Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century". Read more...

...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... A sprawling but carefully argued, edifying account of modern economic history and its impact on global well-being. Read more...