[]
The Great Global Transformation
  • Published: 6 November 2025
  • ISBN: 9781802064674
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 288
Categories:

The Great Global Transformation

National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World

Formats & editions
Hardback
10 Feb 2026
EBook
6 Nov 2025
Buy from…
Amazon Apple Books Google Play Kobo Booktopia eBooks.com

A world-leading economist guides us through the ruins of the current world order: where do we go next?

An FT Book of the Year

Global neoliberalism is on its last legs, while a new international economic order is taking hold. Trade blocs, tariff wars, economic sanctions, and national champions are in; nationalism, anti-immigration movements and the far-right are on the rise. Liberalism is being rejected by the civic realm, as the status quo of the past fifty years crumbles. What remains in its wake?

Drawing on original research, leading economist Branko Milanovic reveals the seismic shifts that are shaping our world. He details the facts: how the rising economic power of Asia is creating a new global ‘middle class’ in the greatest reshuffle of incomes since the Industrial Revolution. He explores our fears: why are we becoming increasingly unhappy, when the world is becoming richer and more equal? And he shows us the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations, driving malcontent to breaking point. In The Great Global Transformation, Milanovic provides an invaluable guide to the new 21st century.
  • Published: 6 November 2025
  • ISBN: 9781802064674
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 288
Categories:

About the author

Branko Milanovic

Branko Milanovic is Senior Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at the City University of New York and Visiting Professor at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Formerly Lead Economist in the World Bank’s research department, he is a world-leading scholar of income inequality, and was the co-creator of The Elephant Curve, also known as the Lakner-Milanovic curve. He is the author of numerous books, including Visions of Inequality, Capitalism, Alone and Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalisation.

BM

Praise for The Great Global Transformation

Yet another fascinating book by the prolific Branko Milanovic

Grace Blakeley

No one describes better and quantifies with such precision the global transformations now underway than Branko Milanovic. This is a must read for anyone concerned about the future of the world order

Gordon Brown

Profound... Simultaneously panoramic and telescopic, there is no better account of how we have got to where we are, and no clearer-eyed analysis of where we might go next

Daniel Markovits

More than anyone alive, Branko Milanovic was likely to propound a grand theory of our perplexing global moment, rooted in data and facts. With brilliance, panache, and reliability, he has done it in this stellar book

Samuel Moyn

A penetrating analysis from the world’s foremost authority on economic inequality

Peter Turchin

Branko Milanovic combines his deep knowledge of political economy and philosophy and his mastery of distributional statistics to the utmost limits of their ability to explain the rise of Asia and the corresponding decline of the West

James K. Galbraith

Vividly captures a world at another crossroads with eloquence, humour and magisterial presentation of quantitative data

Debin Ma

In this incisive new book, Branko Milanovic draws on his unique combination of empirical rigor, philosophical depth, and sharp commentary to illuminate the forces behind the great transformations of our time. Anyone who wants to understand the issues that will decide our future should read it

Fritz Bartel

A provocative tour-de-force. Milanovic reshapes how we think about inequality within and among countries and shows how economic power drives the geopolitics of our emerging multipolar world

Julian Gewirtz

Branko Milanovic analyses with great clarity the historical forces, greater than any we have seen in the last two centuries, presently transforming the world. Everyone who wants to understand these titanic changes must read this book. It is essential reading

Martin Jacques

Intriguing and original

Martin Wolf, Financial Times

Branko Milanovic is a singularly fearless, incisive, and panoramic thinker. The Great Global Transformation is a path-breaking analysis of how Asia's rise has shattered the neoliberal world order and what might come next

Daniel Chandler

Yet another fascinating book by the prolific Branko Milanovic

Grace Blakeley