The Political Economy of Capitalist Crises

Crisis has become a ubiquitous feature of contemporary life which is increasingly dominated by financial collapse, global pandemics, geopolitical upheavals, and climate breakdown. Too often, however, the contours, causes and consequences of crises are taken for granted. Adapted from the popular SPERI Presents... podcast series Crisis Point, this volume seeks to understand the role of crisis in the development and reproduction of capitalism. Each chapter is an interview with an expert political economy scholar, also weaving through the editors’ own analysis. By examining capitalism's historical crises, the volume makes sense of contemporary crisis dynamics from housing to populism to climate. Combining the theoretical and historical rigour of scholarly analysis with an accessible conversational style, the volume makes intelligible the structural drivers of crisis for scholars, students, activists and informed observers of global politics alike.