Has the Covid-19 pandemic changed the world's balance of economic power? How important were political leaders in responding to the crisis born out of the pandemic? Has the latter led to a proliferation of propaganda and disinformation? How serious is the threat of Covid-19 when compared to other problems facing humanity, such as global warming or other public health crises? To answer these questions, Pedro Pinto interviews Adam Tooze in this episode of “It’s Not That Simple”, a podcast by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation. 

A renowned historian, commentator and author, Adam Tooze is a Professor at Columbia University in New York, where he is Director of the European Institute. In the past, he has taught at Cambridge and Yale Universities, as well as at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Tooze teaches and researches widely in the fields of twentieth century and contemporary history with a special focus on the history of economics and a range of themes in political, intellectual, and military history, across a canvas stretching from Europe to the Atlantic. His books have won awards in several countries, and his articles have been published in newspapers or magazines such as the Financial Times, New York Times, The Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Observer, Prospect Magazine, Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, Wall Street Journal, New York Review of Books, Die Zeit or Spiegel. 

In this episode, Tooze discusses the initial reaction of financial markets to the Covid-19 pandemic, the way in which the three major poles of the world economy (United States, the European Union and China) suffered an “extraordinary shock” with the pandemic, and how structural factors and luck were the decisive elements in each society’s response to the crisis. Tooze also addresses the challenge of global warming, the role that countries such as China, Brazil, India, or Indonesia may play in responding to this challenge, and what kind of measures will have to be adopted for this response to be successful. Finally, Tooze also looks at issues such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and the West’s and China’s responses), or how citizens and governments regard statistics, facts, and truth. 

More on this topic

• Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy, Adam Tooze, 2021 • Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, Adam Tooze, 2018 

• The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, Adam Tooze, 2006 

• A profile of Adam Tooze, 2022 

• Conference “Debt and risk sharing in the EU in times of pandemic”, held by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, 2020 

• “How is democracy doing?”, Timothy Snyder interviewed by Pedro Pinto 

Other references in Portuguese

• Podcast Da Capa à Contracapa, “Que China sairá da pandemia?”, with António Caeiro and Marcos Caramuru de Paiva 

• Podcast Da Capa à Contracapa, “EUA ou China? Com a pandemia chegou o 'momento da escolha' para Portugal”, with Carlos Gaspar and Miguel Monjardino 

• Podcast Da Capa à Contracapa, “Como responder aos desafios das alterações climáticas?”