The Fractured Age: How the Return of Geopolitics Will Splinter the Global Economy

Globalization is coming to an end, we are repeatedly told. But deglobalization, despite predictions to the contrary, is not actually happening, contends Neil Shearing, Group Chief Economist at Capital Economics. Instead, he argues in The Fractured Age, a continuingly globalized world is fracturing into unequal blocs. The geopolitical tectonic plates of the planet have shifted back into action recently, and the increased pressures their movements are bringing to bear will stress all our existing financial and commercial structures, habits and orthodoxies. Is the ageing West now in irrevocable economic decline? Are we now all inhabiting a Chinese Century, bolstered by 'friend without limits' Russia, with Xi and Putin in the ascendant? As the world lurches again on its axis, and a new world order creaks into being, which nations will thrive, and which decline? Which companies likewise? And how should householders, citizens, executives and law-makers alter their expectations and their behaviours to secure their prosperity? Shearing's weekly analytical bulletin is read by thousands of the world's most important bankers, investors, pension-fund managers, civil servants and academics. Now, in The Fractured Age, he brings to bear his clear headed, data-driven forecast for the threats and opportunities confronting the world economy over the next decade.