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Brought to you by Penguin Books. When news began leaking out of China about a new virus in December 2019, risk-averse financial markets were alert to the potential for disruption. However, they could never have predicted the complete economic collapse that would follow the COVID-19 pandemic. Stock markets fell faster and more severely than at any time since 1929, currencies worldwide plummeted, investors panicked, and even gold was sold off. Within weeks, the global economy ground to a halt as governments struggled to contain a mounting public health disaster. Flights were grounded, supply chains were disrupted, and sectors 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 afloat. For the first time since World War II, the entire global economic system contracted. This book tells the story of that shutdown. We don't yet know how this story will end, or what new world we will find on the other side. In this quick, captivating, and sometimes shocking analysis, Adam Tooze looks at the wreckage and considers where we might go next.