Davos Man

From the New York Times’ global economics correspondent, a masterwork of explanatory journalism that exposes how billionaires’ systematic plunder of the world – brazenly accelerated during the pandemic – has transformed 21st-century life and dangerously destabilized democracy.

“Davos Man will be read a hundred years from now as a warning…. Deliciously rich with searing detail, the clarity is reminiscent of Tom Wolfe.” (Evan Osnos)

The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism’s triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century.

Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men” – members of the billionaire class – chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a 50-year trend of wealth centralization. Alongside this reporting, Goodman delivers textured portraits of those caught in Davos Man’s wake, including a former steelworker in the American Midwest, a Bangladeshi migrant in Qatar, a Seattle doctor on the front lines of the fight against COVID, blue-collar workers in the tenements of Buenos Aires, an African immigrant in Sweden, a textile manufacturer in Italy, an Amazon warehouse employee in New York City, and more.