Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World

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This masterwork of reporting is the first book to expose how the wealthiest left our healthcare, economy and governments vulnerable to the pandemic—and how they have exploited Covid-19 to multiply their fortunes while the world suffers. As Omicron rages across the world and we continue to see an upsurge in anti-democratic movements,

Davos Man is already being praised as “an urgent, timely, and compelling message with nearly limitless implications” (Kirkus Reviews) that “will be read a hundred years from now as a warning” (Evan Osnos).

Goodman has spent decades studying one of the world’s rarest and most dangerous species—the billionaires who over the past fifty years have systematically looted the world’s economies, starved societies of the tax revenues needed to maintain essential services, profited massively during the Covid-19 pandemic, and destabilized democracy—all under the guise of a new, more socially conscious form of capitalism. In this deeply reported and compulsively readable exposé, Goodman profiles some of the most prominent members of the species, documents the plight of their victims around the globe, and tells how ordinary citizens can fight back and reclaim democracy.

He closely tracks five key Davos Man specimens: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s second richest person; Jamie Dimon, CEO of America’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase; Stephen Schwarzman, head of private equity giant Blackstone; Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager; and tech entrepreneur Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce. “My mission,” Goodman writes, “is to help you understand Davos Man as a species. He is a rare and remarkable creature—a predator who attacks without restraint, perpetually intent on expanding his territory and seizing the nourishment of others, while protecting himself from reprisal by posing as a symbiotic friend to all.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter S. Goodman is the global economics correspondent for the New York Times, based in London. He was previously the NYT’s national economics correspondent, based in New York, where he played a leading role in the paper’s award-winning coverage of the Great Recession, including a series that was a Pulitzer finalist. Previously, he covered the Internet bubble and bust as the Washington Post’s telecommunications reporter, and served as WashPo’s China-based Asian economics correspondent. He is the author of Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy. He graduated from Reed College and completed a master’s in Vietnamese history from the University of California, Berkeley.

The books for this giveaway are being provided by Custom House, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. We have 20 copies available. The giveaway ends on Sunday, January 23rd.