Person
Adam Tooze books: every book Adam Tooze wrote and recommended
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Adam Tooze appears on, in one place — not just one.
Books by Adam Tooze
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The Wages of Destruction
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Crashed
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The Deluge
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Shutdown
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Cambridge History of the Second World War
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Statistics and the German State, 1900-1945
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Charter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
John Adam Tooze is an English-American historian who is a professor at Columbia University, Director of the European Institute and nonresident scholar at Carnegie Europe. Previously, he was Reader in Twentieth-Century History at the University of Cambridge and Gurnee Hart Fellow in History at Jesus College, Cambridge. During his appearances on podcasts such as The Ezra Klein Show and Conversations with Tyler, Tooze has recommended and critiqued several significant historical and economic texts. On The Ezra Klein Show, he offered multiple reading suggestions, beginning with Lu Xun's modern Chinese classic Diary of a Madman, followed by Jonathan Chatwin's The Southern Tour as an account of Deng Xiaoping's 1992 travels in southern China. His third suggestion was Ryan Ruby's Context Collapse, which he described as a poem containing a history of poetry. In a previous episode, Tooze recommended Eswar Prasad's The Future of Money as a helpful guide for understanding digital currencies and cryptocurrency issues. Conversely, during his conversation with Tyler Cowen, Tooze offered a critical perspective on John Maynard Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace, arguing that the book proved disastrous because it provided counterproductive arguments to German nationalists.
Books recommended by Adam Tooze
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The Economic Consequences of the Peace
The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes is a foundational 1919 text that critiques the punitive reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles and warns of the disastrous economic repercussions for Europe.
Critiqued“I regard the economic consequences of the peace as a disastrous book. Um, because it essentially um, it enhanced the and gave arguments to the German nationalists”
Where to get it
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Context Collapse
Context Collapse by Ryan Ruby is a unique literary work that blends poetry with historical analysis.
Recommended“And this is by a friend, a Berlin friend Ryan Ruby. um it's called Context Collapse. And it is literally a poem containing a history of poetry.”
Where to get it
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Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Lu Xun is a foundational work of modern Chinese literature that uses psychological depth and social critique to examine societal pressures.
Recommended“Oh, so my first is um is is a Chinese classic. Not not an ancient classic, but a modern classic. arguably the first maybe the first modern Chinese novela Lucian's um diary of a madman...”
Where to get it
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Future of Money - How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance
Future of Money - How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance by Eswar Prasad is an insightful examination of how modern payment systems, central bank digital currencies, and cryptocurrencies are reshaping the global financial landscape.
Recommended“it is prasad's the future of money on the digital future of of money in the world a really great book if you need a guide to understanding a little bit about you know the crypto in crypto”
Where to get it
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The Southern Tour
The Southern Tour by Jonathan Chatwin is a historical and political account documenting Deng Xiaoping's influential journey through southern China in 1992.
Recommended“My second suggestion is uh is um sorry is Jonathan Chhatwin's uh book the southern tour which is uh an extraordinary account of Deniaing's uh tour of southern China in 1992...”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| How The World Sees America, with Adam Tooze | The Ezra Klein Show | The Ezra Klein Show | 2026-01-30 | 3 |
| Best Of: How the Fed Is ‘Shaking the Entire System’ | The Ezra Klein Show | 2023-05-05 | 1 |
| Adam Tooze on our Financial Past and Future | Conversations with Tyler | 2020-05-06 | 2 |
Other mentions (4: passing, ad reads, own books)
“I say if you want if you want a one-line answer, it's it's the Weimar Republic's survival is dependent, you know, the certainly the argument I would make in in deluge, the distinctive argument that I'm making is it it it does depend critically on the ability of the United States”
“And what Wages of Destruction was trying to do is to say, "Okay, let's write a history of the Third Reich on against the backdrop of assuming that this makes a difference.”
“So what what Wages of Destruction was doing was trying to unpick those anachronistic assumptions about the obvious dominance of the German economy”
“Yeah, I I'm I'm a revisionist on World War I as is clear from Deluge, I think.”