The global financial crisis showed deep problems with mainstream economic predictions. At the same time, it showed the vulnerability of the world’s richest countries and the enormous potential of some poorer ones. China, India, Brazil and other countries are growing faster than Europe or America and they have weathered the crisis better. Will they be new world leaders? And is their growth due to following conventional economic guidelines or instead to strong state leadership and sometimes protectionism? These issues are basic not only to the question of which countries will grow in coming decades but to likely conflicts over global trade policy, currency standards, and economic cooperation. The Possible Futures Series gathers together the great minds of social science to address the significance of the global economic crisis in a series of short, accessible books. Each volume takes on the past, present and future of this crisis, suggesting that the crisis has an informative history, that the consequences could be much more basic than stock declines, and that only fundamental changes – not fiscal band aids – can hold off future repetitions.