The Great Global Transformation

National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World

De: Branko Milanovic

Narrado por: Mark Arnold

Brought to you by Penguin.

A world-leading economist guides us through the ruins of the current world order: where do we go next?

Global neoliberalism is on its last legs, while a new international economic order is taking hold. Trade blocs, tariff wars, economic sanctions, and national champions are in; nationalism, anti-immigration movements and the far-right are on the rise. Liberalism is being rejected by the civic realm, as the status quo of the past fifty years crumbles. What will take its place?

Drawing on original research, leading economist Branko Milanovic reveals the seismic shifts that are shaping our world. He details the facts: how the rising economic power of Asia is creating a new global ‘middle class’ in the greatest reshuffle of incomes since the Industrial Revolution. He explores our fears: why are we becoming increasingly unhappy, when the world is becoming richer and more equal? And he shows us the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations, driving malcontent to breaking point. In The Great Global Transformation, Milanovic provides an invaluable guide to the new 21st century.

© Branko Milanovic 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Reseñas de la Crítica

No one describes better and quantifies with such precision the global transformations now underway than Branko Milanovic. This is a must read for anyone concerned about the future of the world order (Gordon Brown)

Everyone today—from thinkers, to policy-makers, to citizens and workers—knows that something is happening to the global order, but no one has been able to understand what it is. Now Branko Milanovic’s profound book explains this Great Global Transformation. Simultaneously panoramic and telescopic, Milanovic’s explanation ranges across history, philosophy, economics, and politics to illuminate the fortunes of entire nations and of the individual people in them. There is no better account of how we have got to where we are, and no clearer-eyed analysis of where we might go next. (Daniel Markovits)

More than anyone alive, Branko Milanovic was likely to propound a grand theory of our perplexing global moment, rooted in data and facts. With brilliance, panache, and reliability, he has done it in this stellar book. The rise of China has prompted comparable developments across opposed states, as the neoliberal politics of monied elites continue to stoke rage. No one knows what comes next, but no one more than Milanovic has seen more persuasively where we are. (Samuel Moyn, Yale University)

For fifty years, Global Neoliberalism has reigned supreme, having supplanted the postwar Keynesian–Welfare Consensus. Now that order is in terminal decline. What comes next? A penetrating analysis from the world’s foremost authority on economic inequality (Peter Turchin)

In this masterful account of The Great Global Transformation, Branko Milanovic combines his deep knowledge of political economy and philosophy and mastery of distributional statistics, to the utmost limits of their ability to explain the rise of Asia and the corresponding decline of the West (James K. Galbraith)

This latest grand narratives from Blanko Milanovic vividly captures a world at another crossroads caught in shifting geopolitical and ideological megatrends marked by the phenomenal rise of China and the rise of Nationalism in the West in the last two decades. Liberal democracy is under siege even in the West and under retreat elsewhere. With eloquence, humour, astuteness and magisterial presentation of quantitative data, Milanovich offers a penetrating tale of how we arrived here in the last fifty years and most importantly, some critical insights on where we might be heading (Debin Ma)

In this incisive new book, Branko Milanovic draws on his unique combination of empirical rigor, philosophical depth, and sharp commentary to illuminate the forces behind the great transformations of our time. Anyone who wants to understand the issues that will decide our future should read it (Fritz Bartel)

Yet another fascinating book by the prolific Branko Milanovic (Grace Blakeley)