by Quinn Slobodian (Author)A Fortune best non-fiction book of 2023 In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the constraints of democracy. “Quinn Slobodian’s eye-catching case studies warn against the powerful movement seeking a radical capitalist future…The story is told over the course of 11 lively and engaging chapters…[a] unique and highly entertaining collection of case studies of the logic of capitalist Exit.” - Financial Times “Compelling…Quinn 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 “An instant political classic. Quinn Slobodian has produced an extraordinary book, showing how capitalists have been punching holes in national governance to enrich themselves and marginalize democratic self-determination. Filled with characters too strange for fiction and written with engaging brio, Crack-Up Capitalism confirms Slobodian’s reputation as our leading historian of neoliberalism.” - Samuel Moyn, author of Humane Look at a map of the world and you'll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces, ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether. Crack-Up Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians--from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel--around the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism. Historian Quinn Slobodian leads us from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the former frontier of the American West, from the medieval City of London to the gold vaults of right-wing billionaires, and finally into the world's oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where market competition is unfettered by democracy. A masterful work of economic and intellectual history, Crack-Up Capitalism offers both a new way of looking at the world and a new vision of coming threats. Full of rich details and provocative analysis, Crack-Up Capitalism offers an alarming view of a possible future. About the Author QUINN SLOBODIAN is the author of the award-winning Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, which has been translated into 6 languages. A frequent contributor to the Guardian, Foreign Policy, Dissent, the Nation, the New Statesman, and the New York Times, he is a professor of the history of ideas at Wellesley College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.