Welcome to The Rift: a newsletter for critical thinkers who are concerned about the state of the world and trying to make sense of the crisis of our times.
My name is Jerome Roos. I’m a political economist at the London School of Economics, where I specialize in the study of capitalism and the origins of today’s global crisis. Before this, I briefly taught at the University of Cambridge.
My first book, a history of international debt crises, was published by Princeton University Press and won the Immanuel Wallerstein Award for best book on the political economy of the world system. I’ve also written op-eds and longer essays for The Guardian, The New York Times, New Statesman and Al Jazeera English.
I’m currently working on my second book, called CRISIS, which aims to place our age of upheaval within the grand sweep of world history. The Bookseller has called it a “ground-breaking study” and “one of the most talked-about titles ahead of the London Book Fair.” It will be published by Knopf/Vintage in the US and by Fern Press/Vintage in the UK, and is so far set to be translated into twenty languages.
The Rift will be the online companion to this new book: a place where I can try out fresh ideas and share some of my initial findings to provide a more long-term perspective on the crisis of our times.
I believe that we urgently need to move beyond the superficiality of the 24-hour news cycle and the tired social media “discourse” to ask much more profound questions about how we got here and where we are going. I hope that The Rift can offer a creative space for such big-picture thinking.
Above all, the newsletter is motivated by a strong conviction that there is an alternative to the present global disorder. Join me in unearthing the roots of today’s deepening world crisis and exploring the opportunities for transformative change.
What you’ll get
A free subscription will give you:
📬 The main newsletter in your inbox.
🗄️ Access to most of the online archive.
A paid subscription will also get you:
📚 The “3D roundup” of reading tips.
💬 Access to the chat and comments.
📨 The ability to reply to The Rift emails.
Founding members will also receive:
📕 A signed copy of CRISIS when it’s out.
