Adam Tooze
Economic historian at Columbia; writes Chartbook on economics, geopolitics and history, and wrote Crashed and The Deluge.
Adam Tooze did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
Latest Newsletter
What they believe
-
Even at low incomes, today's fast-growing cities are not centres of disease and mass death as 19th-century European cities were, because modern medicine and basic public health let them keep growing
even at relatively low per capita incomes the emergent cities of the 21st century are not centers of diseases and mass death, as they would have been in Europe in the 19th century. Modern facilities of medicine and rudimentary public health do a remarkable job in enabling huge agglomerations of people, even at low incomes to continue growing.
adamtooze.substack.comSaid 23 Oct 2026This on korrents
-
AfD support reflects a coherent anti-systemic worldview rather than incoherent or narrowly self-interested preferences.
Rather than thinking of this set of preferences as incoherent, or merely the expression of a sectional petty bourgeois interest, it makes more sense, surely, to view it as a coherent set of anti-systemic views.
adamtooze.substack.comSaid 11 Sept 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
4 November
3 November
2 November
1 November
31 October
30 October
29 October
28 October
27 October
26 October
25 October
23 October
From one piece Chartbook 479 Africa’s unprecedented urbanization - against historic normalization (#2) 3 beliefs · adamtooze.substack.com
-
korrents.com
Mapping a new development onto historical precedents may be reassuring, but it can also be deeply misleadingTheir words
Such mental mappings may be reassuring, but they can also be deeply misleading
-
Their words
If it is true that dense agglomerations of people are incubators of innovation and change, the mistake is to focus on the degree of conformity with, or convergence to some predefined vision of modernity, rather than to focus on the "reinvention of society" that the Economist so aptly highlights.
-
Their words
even at relatively low per capita incomes the emergent cities of the 21st century are not centers of diseases and mass death, as they would have been in Europe in the 19th century. Modern facilities of medicine and rudimentary public health do a remarkable job in enabling huge agglomerations of people, even at low incomes to continue growing.
11 September
From one piece Chartbook 474: The state is the problem - the AfD’s anti-systemic diagnosis of contemporary Germany. 2 beliefs · adamtooze.substack.com
-
korrents.com
Germany's crisis is too deep to be solved by conventional tax, spending, or regulatory adjustments.Their words
Germany is in trouble. But the trouble goes deep and cannot be addressed by "more of the same" socio-economic measures in the domain of taxes or social spending or regulation.
-
Their words
Rather than thinking of this set of preferences as incoherent, or merely the expression of a sectional petty bourgeois interest, it makes more sense, surely, to view it as a coherent set of anti-systemic views.
7 September
From one piece Chartbook 473 Germany’s democratic earthquake: the AfD breakthrough in Sachsen-Anhalt and the question of an “alternative to the Alternative”. 3 beliefs · adamtooze.substack.com
-
immigrationgovernmentdemocracy
Their words
Voting for the AfD in the current landscape, whatever your economic issues, in short, is not a vote to have your economic issues addressed by social democracy, or welfare or government intervention.
-
Their words
People who act and speak in public as right-wing extremists and are labeled as such, establish a claim to authenticity.
-
Their words
To my mind, if progressive policy hopes to engage with such voters at all - and it is open question whether it should - it must address not just the material realities of relative economic disadvantage, but above all the "outsider" credentials of the AfD.
29 July
From one piece Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One". 5 beliefs · adamtooze.substack.com
-
korrents.com
China's industrial lead was manufactured by deliberate state industrial policy rather than by market forces alone.Their words
What China is delivering in the 2020s is an industrial policy shock of global scale.
-
Their words
It wasn’t just the West that drew conclusions from China shock 1.0. Beijing learned from China Shock 1.0 too.
-
Their words
The original point of the China Shock 1.0 discourse was not to foreground the unfairness of Chiense competition, so much as the malfunctioning of US policy and societal institutions in the face of concentrated globalization shocks.
+ 2 more
-
Their words
China shock 2.0 threatens high status manufactured goods: European cars and engineering.
-
korrents.com
The second China shock is landing on Europe, where the first one landed on the United States.Their words
In China shock 1.0 the key target was the US. In China shock 2.0 it is Europe.
22 July
From one piece Chartbook 460 Greedflation meets China shock: Can Europe's car industry be saved without making the cost of living crisis worse? 2 beliefs · adamtooze.substack.com
-
Their words
To put this same story another way, the European car industry in the early 2020s was a prime example of greedflation i.e. companies taking advantage of the COVID shock and other disruptions and to hike profits at the expense of consumers.
-
Their words
It reveals things that are deeply wrong at the heart of the European economy.
30 January
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The Southern TourTheir words
My second suggestion is uh is uh sorry is Jonathan Chhatwin's uh book the southern tour which is uh an extraordinary account of Deniaing's uh tour of southern China in 1992 in the moment when after the repression of gentleman square in ' 89 he revives the reform and opening up project. So this legendary moment in the economic reform process that has made modern China. And the third suggestion is is poetry. I love poetry.
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Context CollapseTheir words
Um it's called Context Collapse. And it is literally a poem containing a history of poetry. So it is an extraordinary long- form poem in which he in a I was asking about it over drinks the other night. Why did he do it? It's this delirious effort to write in poetry a history of the form and the collapse of its context in modern culture. It's truly a tour of the force.
22 December 2025
1 November 2025
26 October 2025
24 October 2025
13 October 2025
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 19 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Even at low incomes, today's fast-growing cities are not centres of disease and mass death as 19th-century European cities were, because modern medicine and basic public health let them keep growing
even at relatively low per capita incomes the emergent cities of the 21st century are not centers of diseases and mass death, as they would have been in Europe in the 19th century. Modern facilities of medicine and rudimentary public health do a remarkable job in enabling huge agglomerations of people, even at low incomes to continue growing.
Chartbook 479 Africa’s unprecedented urbanization - against historic normalization (#2) Said 23 Oct 2026
If dense agglomerations of people are incubators of change, the mistake in studying African urbanization is to measure its convergence to a predefined modernity instead of looking at how society is being reinvented
If it is true that dense agglomerations of people are incubators of innovation and change, the mistake is to focus on the degree of conformity with, or convergence to some predefined vision of modernity, rather than to focus on the "reinvention of society" that the Economist so aptly highlights.
Chartbook 479 Africa’s unprecedented urbanization - against historic normalization (#2) Said 23 Oct 2026
Mapping a new development onto historical precedents may be reassuring, but it can also be deeply misleading
Such mental mappings may be reassuring, but they can also be deeply misleading
Chartbook 479 Africa’s unprecedented urbanization - against historic normalization (#2) Said 23 Oct 2026
Show 16 more
AfD support reflects a coherent anti-systemic worldview rather than incoherent or narrowly self-interested preferences.
Rather than thinking of this set of preferences as incoherent, or merely the expression of a sectional petty bourgeois interest, it makes more sense, surely, to view it as a coherent set of anti-systemic views.
Chartbook 474: The state is the problem - the AfD’s anti-systemic diagnosis of contemporary Germany. Said 11 Sept 2026
Germany's crisis is too deep to be solved by conventional tax, spending, or regulatory adjustments.
Germany is in trouble. But the trouble goes deep and cannot be addressed by "more of the same" socio-economic measures in the domain of taxes or social spending or regulation.
Chartbook 474: The state is the problem - the AfD’s anti-systemic diagnosis of contemporary Germany. Said 11 Sept 2026
Countering the far right requires addressing voters' desire for an outsider identity, not just their economic grievances.
To my mind, if progressive policy hopes to engage with such voters at all - and it is open question whether it should - it must address not just the material realities of relative economic disadvantage, but above all the "outsider" credentials of the AfD.
Chartbook 473 Germany’s democratic earthquake: the AfD breakthrough in Sachsen-Anhalt and the question of an “alternative to the Alternative”. Said 7 Sept 2026
Publicly embracing a taboo, extremist identity can function as a costly signal that builds political authenticity and loyalty.
People who act and speak in public as right-wing extremists and are labeled as such, establish a claim to authenticity.
Chartbook 473 Germany’s democratic earthquake: the AfD breakthrough in Sachsen-Anhalt and the question of an “alternative to the Alternative”. Said 7 Sept 2026
Support for populist right-wing parties is driven more by rejection of the status quo and anti-immigrant sentiment than by demand for economic redistribution.
Voting for the AfD in the current landscape, whatever your economic issues, in short, is not a vote to have your economic issues addressed by social democracy, or welfare or government intervention.
Chartbook 473 Germany’s democratic earthquake: the AfD breakthrough in Sachsen-Anhalt and the question of an “alternative to the Alternative”. Said 7 Sept 2026
The second China shock is landing on Europe, where the first one landed on the United States.
In China shock 1.0 the key target was the US. In China shock 2.0 it is Europe.
Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One". Said 29 Jul 2026
The second China shock threatens Europe's highest-status manufacturing, not an industrial backwater the way the first one did in America.
China shock 2.0 threatens high status manufactured goods: European cars and engineering.
Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One". Said 29 Jul 2026
The original 'China shock' research was about American institutions failing the communities that were hit, not about unfair Chinese competition.
The original point of the China Shock 1.0 discourse was not to foreground the unfairness of Chiense competition, so much as the malfunctioning of US policy and societal institutions in the face of concentrated globalization shocks.
Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One". Said 29 Jul 2026
Beijing drew its own conclusions from the first China shock and set out to engage the world economy from a position of technological leadership.
It wasn’t just the West that drew conclusions from China shock 1.0. Beijing learned from China Shock 1.0 too.
Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One". Said 29 Jul 2026
China's industrial lead was manufactured by deliberate state industrial policy rather than by market forces alone.
What China is delivering in the 2020s is an industrial policy shock of global scale.
Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One". Said 29 Jul 2026
Europe's car industry is being overrun because of what has gone wrong inside Europe, not only because of what China did.
It reveals things that are deeply wrong at the heart of the European economy.
Chartbook 460 Greedflation meets China shock: Can Europe's car industry be saved without making the cost of living crisis worse? Said 22 Jul 2026
Europe's carmakers spent the early 2020s raising prices and profits at their customers' expense, and narrowed their own market doing it.
To put this same story another way, the European car industry in the early 2020s was a prime example of greedflation i.e. companies taking advantage of the COVID shock and other disruptions and to hike profits at the expense of consumers.
Chartbook 460 Greedflation meets China shock: Can Europe's car industry be saved without making the cost of living crisis worse? Said 22 Jul 2026
Protection for European industry should be granted only alongside demands for systematic reform of that industry.
And this in turn means that if we really want to find a way out of the impasse, advocacy for protection and support should be tied to demands for systematic reform.
Chartbook 460 Greedflation meets China shock: Can Europe's car industry be saved without making the cost of living crisis worse? Said 22 Jul 2026
Europe's corporate sector has become a net lender to the rest of the economy, and that low rate of productive investment is what left its industry exposed.
The two seemingly contradictory trends connect, because the relatively low rate of productive investment leaves European industry vulnerable to its most vigorous competitors whose firms are contending with an even more deflationary macroeconomic situation at home in China.
Chartbook 460 Greedflation meets China shock: Can Europe's car industry be saved without making the cost of living crisis worse? Said 22 Jul 2026
Europe's crises were predictable and overdetermined, not the unforeseeable shocks that the 'return of history' story makes of them.
They are none of these things. All three were predictable and overdetermined.
Chartbook 452 Europe's Machiavellian moment? Said 21 Jun 2026
The talk of history 'returning' to Europe is a symptom of disorientation among its elites, not evidence of a new realism.
Rather they are the sign of disorientation, disillusionment and despair.
Chartbook 452 Europe's Machiavellian moment? Said 21 Jun 2026
Beliefs others hold too
China's industrial lead was manufactured by deliberate state industrial policy rather than by market forces alone. 2 hold this
What China is delivering in the 2020s is an industrial policy shock of global scale.
Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One". Said 29 Jul 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 3 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Recommends Context Collapse
Um it's called Context Collapse. And it is literally a poem containing a history of poetry. So it is an extraordinary long- form poem in which he in a I was asking about it over drinks the other night. Why did he do it? It's this delirious effort to write in poetry a history of the form and the collapse of its context in modern culture. It's truly a tour of the force.
youtube.com 30 Jan 2026
Recommends The Southern Tour
My second suggestion is uh is uh sorry is Jonathan Chhatwin's uh book the southern tour which is uh an extraordinary account of Deniaing's uh tour of southern China in 1992 in the moment when after the repression of gentleman square in ' 89 he revives the reform and opening up project. So this legendary moment in the economic reform process that has made modern China. And the third suggestion is is poetry. I love poetry.
youtube.com 30 Jan 2026
Loved Central Banking and Financialization: A Romanian Account of how Eastern Europe became Subprime
Folks really need to check out @DanielaGabor staggering book on 1990s: Central Banking and Financialization: A Romanian Account of how Eastern Europe became Subprime (Studies in Economic Transition) Mind-blowing.
x.com 16 Aug 2021
Where they publish
Newsletter Chartbook His newsletter on economics, geopolitics and history. Has a feed.
Long pieces built around charts and primary sources, plus a numbered link roundup, several a week.
Recent
- Chartbook 483 After the midterms: How does America come down from Trump’s “speedball economy”? 4 Nov 2026 The dramatic landslide for the Democrats in the 2026 midterms confirms the common sense amongst Trump’s critics that his economic policies made no sense in political terms.
- Top Links 1275 AI and the great cashflow transfer. The mining boom that drove the Australian economy. Psychopatriarchy & the caesura in the movement of thought. 4 Nov 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Top Links 1274 AI & recycled capex. Total social financing. Schacht-maxxing & the West Virginia coal wars. 3 Nov 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
Show 17 more
- Top Links 1273 AI price shock. A miserable decade in the UK. Harlan county KY & the tank - a German history. 2 Nov 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Top Links 1272 The Shekel caught in Israel’s political impasse. The history of strikes. The Register of British Slave Traders & the first currency of communist China. 1 Nov 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Chartbook 482 China’s billionaires in the age of China Shock 2.0. 31 Oct 2026 (Walled-in wealth #3)
- Top Links 1271 The Trump org’s network. Marketizing compute. Sticky wages, brass bands throbbing in the parks & the future reign of happiness and peace. 31 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Top Links 1270 Anthropic IPO highlights. Saudi takes a hit. AI comes for Lao Gan Ma & the parody of passwords. 30 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Top Links 1269 Politics and money in Brazil. Solid electricity. What Brits do & Fatherland. 29 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze.
- Chartbook 481 How stable is the profit dollar in an age of “speedball capitalism”? 28 Oct 2026 The dollar remains the central currency of the world economy, but the economic logic underpinning that status is subject to continuous metamorphosis. This constant change leaves us struggling to understand and predict w…
- Top Links 1268 Apollo questions AI. What goes into a data center. “Collective Relays” and Whicker in Paraguay. 28 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze.
- Top Links 1267 Cracks in the AI boom. China’s grumpy universities. Lula in his element & what to watch for at the 5th Plenum. 27 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze.
- Top Links 1266 Winter arrives in the market. No one owns protectionism. The DSA trickle & flying across America. 26 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Chartbook 480 France’s schools system may be bad, but we should all be protesting the decline in education! 25 Oct 2026 Given the unrest in France triggered by student protests, it seems obvious to ask, how bad is the state of France’s education system, really?
- Top Links 1265 Manufacturing slump. Federal flows. Who likes the DSA and a Roman killing field. 25 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Top Links 1264 Indonesia and the rise of the index vigilantes. The rise of the Mann-o-sphere. Voegelin and the end of history. 24 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Indonesia and the rise of the index vigilantes. The rise of the Mann-o-sphere. Voegelin and the end of history. 24 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- Chartbook 479 Africa’s unprecedented urbanization - against historic normalization (#2) 23 Oct 2026 Of all the mega trends at work in the world today the combination of population growth and urbanization in Africa is one of the most dramatic.
- Top Links 1263 The relentless, totalising machine of American finance. African urbanization. Blowing up cathedrals and is Belgium next? 23 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
- The relentless, totalising machine of American finance. African urbanization. Blowing up cathedrals and is Belgium next? 23 Oct 2026 Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
Link verified 20 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Bluesky @adamtooze.bsky.social Their Bluesky account.
Recent
- Is "decline" really Europe's problem. Or is Europe the more agreeable downleg of a K-shaped OECD? Latest chartbook just dropped. 22 Dec 2025 adamtooze.substack.com
- After the NYC Ballot: an evening of conversation, reflection, and cross-cultural dialogue with noted podcasters Hua Sirui and Wang Qing and Jack Gross of Phenomenal World. Date & Time: Saturday, November 8, 2025 · 6:30–8:30pm 1 Nov 2025 luma.com
- With all due respect, when did the US ever "lead the charge" on confronting climate change, even rhetorically, let alone in terms of actual energy policy? 26 Oct 2025
Show 2 more
- I was a little fired up at Frankfurt ;) 24 Oct 2025
- This is truly an amazing opportunity. 13 Oct 2025
Link verified 23 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.