Spring Break Read: Slouching Towards Utopia.

Or The Shortcut: Podcast Summaries

Where Did All the Money Come From?

Brad DeLong is a celebrated economic historian. His brilliant book, “Slouching Toward Utopia,” probes why, after tens of thousands of years of economic stagnation, human wealth finally exploded upward from 1870 to 2010, particularly in the global north. DeLong is insightful, delightful and encyclopedic, turning what could be dry economic history into a surprisingly enjoyable read.

His spot-on analysis of the drivers of civilizational change, the value of the market, and the immense problems it creates have won him praise from progressive thinkers like Thomas Piketty and Paul Krugman, center-left economists like Larry Summers and center-right publications like the Economist.

If you aren’t sure about 600 pages, I strongly recommend at least listening to a couple of podcast interviews about the book. 

Sean Illing interviews Delong on Vox’s “The Gray Area” and the discussion is more or less a summary of the book. You can listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

For those who have a taste for Tyler Cowen’s dizzying and polymathic interview style, DeLong’s interview on Conversations with Tyler is also a fantastic follow up to the above conversation. Here it is on Apple and Spotify as well. Their chat is fantastically far reaching and stimulating, whatever you think of their takes.