Extreme Economies: What Life at the World’s Margins Can Teach Us About Our Own Future

While other economic prognosticators may analyze data or turn to academia for inspiration, London School of Economics fellow Davies takes a different tack. Adopting the Keynesian concept that those living at the extreme ends of the economy are the "advance guard" whose situation will reveal ideas about the future, Davies circumnavigated the globe to find the best examples of what sustains an economy in order to figure out what that may herald for us. This research takes the author from an Indonesian community devastated by a tsunami to the world’s first all-digital economy to an uncharted backwater in the Panamanian jungle. Davies contemplates what makes economies survive—and fail. The author interviewed more than 500 people for his research, and their experiences help support the richly textured illustration of his principles.