A complex story, which Tooze tells with clarity and verve… The world is unlikely to be treated to a better account of the economics of the pandemic.

Shutdown is a seriously impressive book, both endlessly quotable and rigorously analytical. Tooze synthesises a huge volume of information to argue that we must prepare for a new wave of crises or risk being sunk by them. Hopefully, governments everywhere will heed his warning.

Mr Tooze displays a remarkable ability to master the detail … This is truly a picture of the global impact of the crisis; it covers the disruption in the financial markets, as well as the ins and outs of government policy.

Fascinating, informative and wise.

An admirable work of synthesis and original analysis from the pre-eminent diagnostician of our age of discontents.

What sets [Shutdown] apart is Tooze’s ability to keep his eye on the big picture – and the long view … There will be plenty more books to come on the global economy of 2020. Few will be as timely, as wide-ranging or as clear as Shutdown.

[A] brilliant, bracing account of the Covid pandemic and its protracted political aftermath … Nuanced and wide-ranging. Tooze has the impressive ability, as a writer, to contextualise historical events as they unfold.

To read Shutdown feels like sitting alongside the great professor while he feverishly collates an array of data and anecdotes, attempts to chronicle what is going on, his head fizzing with ideas about what it might all mean and where it might be leading … a fine use of one’s time.

Of all the instant histories spawned by the pandemic, this is the closest we’ll get to a thriller … it’s a story that bears rereading … a survival guide for the next man-made cataclysm that Adam Tooze warns will surely come soon.

A comprehensive history of an unprecedented year … Readers will find this deeply informed parsing of the pandemic to be illuminating and thought-provoking.