Description

In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal an end to nationstates and the constraints of democracy

Look at a map of the world and youll see a colorful checkerboard of nationstates But this is not where power actually resides Over the last decade globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces free ports tax havens special economic zones With the new spaces ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether

CrackUp Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertariansfrom Milton Friedman to Peter Thielaround the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism Historian Quinn Slobodian leads us from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid from the neoConfederate South to the former frontier of the American West from the medieval City of London to the gold vaults of rightwing billionaires and finally into the worlds oceans and war zones charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where market competition is unfettered by democracy

A masterful work of economic and intellectual history CrackUp Capitalism offers both a new way of looking at the world and a new vision of coming threats Full of rich details and provocative analysis CrackUp Capitalism offers an alarming view of a possible future

A Macmillan Audio production from Metropolitan Books