Hidden Forces

In Episode 208 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Adam Tooze, professor of history and the director of the European Institute at Columbia University. He’s also a prolific public commentator and author of several prize-winning books including his latest, “Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World Economy.” In the first part of their conversation, Demetri and Adam work their way through the chain of events that occurred between the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in January 2020 and the inauguration of Joe Biden in January 2021. Effectively the period that we now consider to be the first full year of the pandemic. In Adam’s own words we “wrestle with power and knowledge in time,” in an effort to understand the nature of the forces that this pandemic has unleashed, their constancy, and their implications for shaping not only our children’s futures but more immediately, ours as well. In the second part of our conversation, Demetri and Adam begin to dissect specific aspects and features of the modern world whether tho