Crack-Up Capitalism

Critics Review

• Timely and important, eye-opening … Slobodian has done us a great service, identifying a phenomenon that needs unmasking.

  The Observer

• Gonzo brilliance … Unique and highly entertaining.

  Financial Times

• Excellent … A new generation of swashbuckling billionaires entertain the prospect of secession, using their money to realize fantasies of escape, whether through seasteading or spaceships.

  New York Times

• After reading historian Quinn Slobodian’s new book, you are not likely to think about capitalism the same way … great fun to read … an important guide to the current struggle over how the ruling class rules. And Slobodian ultimately raises the question of whether there are cracks in the system, or whether the cracks are the system.

  Jacobin

• An important historical corrective to the myths, fantasies and occlusions that have allowed dystopias such as Dubai to be presented as models for “the west” to learn from. Many of the men whose manifestos and dreams Slobodian surveys simply don’t know what they’re talking about. One wonders if they ever wanted to learn in the first place.

  The Guardian

• Ranging from Liechtenstein to Somalia, and from Hong Kong to Silicon Valley, Quinn Slobodian’s Crack-Up Capitalism exposes how zones of exception promise capitalism an escape from the confines of the modern state and the constraints of democracy. Revelatory reading. A worthy successor to Slobodian’s brilliant Globalists.

  Adam Tooze, author of Crashed

• Slobodian has written a fascinating account of the sheer hubris of the market radicals who have sought to free capitalism from democracy first by transforming the world’s political geography and now by abandoning the material world. He tells this important story with verve and considerable insight.

  Helen Thompson

• Lively … an engaging and fluently written account of the dreams of many philosophers, economists and, frankly, oddballs who have grown impatient with the shackles of the big state. … Slobodian is keen to highlight the often anti-democratic impulses of libertarian thinkers. … While the yearning is simple and admirable, the road map to reaching utopia is quite complicated.

  The Spectator

• Compelling … a challenge not just to traditional narratives of political power, but also to liberal assumptions about freedom.

  Times Literary Supplement

• A fascinating and important book, which brings to the surface some of the deepest political undercurrents of our times. Crack-Up Capitalism is an exemplary use of history to illuminate the present, forcing us to reassess what we thought we knew about the contemporary world.

  Hari Kunzru, author of Red Pill

• Revelatory. In this head-spinner of a book, Quinn Slobodian shows how zones, islands, micronations, gated communities, and cyber realms are remaking our planet. The capitalist future they portend isn’t a borderless utopia but a jurisdictional shatter belt, where democracy is a distant dream.

  Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire

• With each new book, Quinn Slobodian adds extraordinary new detail to his ongoing account of 21st-century political and economic arrangements. Crack-up Capitalism is concerned with the “zones” of global space: the micro-divisions and gradations from which the real atomic force of our system derives. It’s very convincing: get ready to throw out all previous maps.

  Rana Dasgupta

• In Crack-Up Capitalism, Quinn Slobodian takes us on a wild ride through the fenced-in compounds and failed states of today’s capitalist world. This sharp and wickedly entertaining book is a necessary field guide to the LARPers, bloggers, and grifters of the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist world, a warning that they are closer to fulfilling their fantasies than we might think, and a clarion call for collective action to preserve – and greatly expand – democracy as we know it.

  Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back

• Richly documented exposé … An insightful piercing of the veil of nation-states to reveal capitalism’s frightening, anti-democratic tendencies.

  Kirkus

• A gifted storyteller … a critical wake-up call …. revealing the roots of a rot many have hitherto been unable to name and confront. By opening that portal, Slobodian trusts us to take the next steps, confident that in knowing the beast, we might better be able to slay it.

  Quill & Quire

• Slobodian’s vivid description of zones shows us why our political system can no longer be said to be democratic … Slobodian wakes us up to democracy’s underthrow: decentralization is a strategy for its unraveling, not its salvation.

  Los Angeles Review of Books

• Democracy is already facing numerous threats from factions on the right who question the legitimacy of election results that don’t go their way. Crack-Up Capitalism is a reminder that this political challenge is only one of a number of fronts in the sustained attack on American democracy.

  The Atlantic

• A sound intellectual investment, an insightful read … Would definitely recommend.

  The British Army Review