bwaber reviewed Slouching Towards Utopia by Bradford DeLong
An Economics-Tinged Review of History from 1870 to 2015
3 stars
If you like your history with a healthy dose of economics, this is the book for you. While I was expecting a more rigorous, academic review of the roots of the rapid growth in prosperity through 1980 and the subsequent slowdown due mainly to the stranglehold of neoliberal thought and policies, DeLong instead delivers a mostly by-the-numbers review of major events. There is good grounding in the philosophical writings behind decisions that certain actors took which I found helpful, but I was slightly disappointed with the book overall. Particularly concerning were assertions around more recent events (e.g. "the China Shock wasn't a real thing") that are so at odds with the last decade plus of economic research and smack of covering for DeLong's role in facilitating some of these policy failures. If you focus on the earlier sections and read it more from a history perspective, however, it is certainly …
If you like your history with a healthy dose of economics, this is the book for you. While I was expecting a more rigorous, academic review of the roots of the rapid growth in prosperity through 1980 and the subsequent slowdown due mainly to the stranglehold of neoliberal thought and policies, DeLong instead delivers a mostly by-the-numbers review of major events. There is good grounding in the philosophical writings behind decisions that certain actors took which I found helpful, but I was slightly disappointed with the book overall. Particularly concerning were assertions around more recent events (e.g. "the China Shock wasn't a real thing") that are so at odds with the last decade plus of economic research and smack of covering for DeLong's role in facilitating some of these policy failures. If you focus on the earlier sections and read it more from a history perspective, however, it is certainly a good review. For an economics-focused analysis you're better off going to any of Piketty's recent books.
