AI Summary
5 min read🎙️ The Voices & The Context
- The Format: In-depth interview with a single expert guest, framed by host narration on global crises.
- The Key Players:
- Ezra Klein: NYT journalist and host, probing historian on geopolitics, Davos, and China's role.
- Adam Tooze: Columbia professor, "crisis whisperer," author of books like Crashed, Substack writer; front-row at Davos, deep dives on China and world orders.
- The Vibe: Intense, educational, awe-struck at global shifts; mixes sobering realism with fascination for China's scale.
🗝️ Key Themes & Topics
The episode unpacks a "time of monsters" via Gramsci's quote, Davos as rupture moment, US power visions, and China's transformative pressure.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Adam Tooze**
- 2 (03:52) **Davos Wake-Up: End of the Old American Order**
- 3 (07:22) **Mark Carney's Rupture Speech**
- 4 (10:37) **Biden as Historical Interlude**
- 5 (13:22) **Trump's Vision of American Power**
- 6 (19:01) **China and Europe at Davos**
- 7 (22:44) **Trump Diagnosing Decline? Obama Saw It First**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
The old world order is dying. What new world order — if any — is struggling to be born?
I can’t think of a week when it felt clearer that an era was coming to an end. Whatever people thought America was, at least for a couple of decades, it’s something else now. The killing of Alex Pretti and the fact that it was recorded on video that plainly contradicted the Trump administration’s initial narrative made that clear. Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, also drove home that point when he declared at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the world was in the midst of a “rupture.”
What do people think of America now in Europe? In China? And if American hegemony is coming to an end, what comes after that?
Adam Tooze is a historian at Columbia University and a chronicler of crises. The Guardian recently called him “the crisis whisperer.” He’s written a number of books about the times when systems fall apart and new orders emerge, including “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World.” And on his Substack, Chartbook, he tracks the unfolding crises and power shifts, in particular the rise of China. He also had a front-row seat to the chaos of Davos last week, moderating a panel that included Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary.
I wanted to talk to Tooze about what he saw at the World Economic Forum, how the world’s understanding of the U.S. is changing and how he’s making sense of this moment.
Mentioned:
Crashed by Adam Tooze
“Chartbook” Substack by Adam Tooze
“The Empty Chamber” by George Packer
“The growing challenges for monetary policy in the current international monetary and financial system", speech by Mark Carney
Book Recommendations:
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Lu Xun
The Southern Tour by Jonathan Chatwin
Context Collapse by Ryan Ruby
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. More from this podcast