The Pandemic Pivot

"If a crisis is also an opportunity, teachers and students everywhere can benefit from this collective but visionary response to the pandemic. Across crucial policy areas, diverse voices suggest how we can seize our moment to leap beyond some of the endemic injustices of the past, locally and globally." —Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University "Feffer (Aftershocks), a foreign policy analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies, gathers ideas from the institute’s summer 2020 symposium in this incisive and far-reaching treatise on the potential for post-pandemic global reform. Drawing from discussions held by think-tank founder Walden Bello, labor union director Cathy Feingold, Yale University history and law professor Samuel Moyn, and other progressives, Feffer contends that the Covid-19 pandemic, income inequality, and climate change are interconnected issues that must be addressed by a concerted global effort. A chapter on the prospects for a “Green recovery” from the pandemic notes that politicians in the E.U., South Korea, and the U.S. have proposed Green New Deals, and raises ideas for how best to manage the decline of the fossil fuel industry. Feffer also summarizes participants’ thoughts on issues the pandemic has brought into sharp relief, including income disparities along racial and ethnic lines and the potential consequences of a break in the international food supply chain. Though participants provide few specific, substantive plans of action, they point to organizations such as the UN and the World Social Forum as models for international cooperation and problem-solving. Progressives will gather valuable talking points from this shrewd assessment of the current state of global affairs." —Publishers Weekly "At a moment when faculty across the disciplines should be encouraging students to get involved in solving the world's urgent problems—from the pandemic and public health to global warming and war to inequality and injustices related to racism, sexism, and other systems of oppression—The Pandemic Pivot is an excellent, cutting-edge text to assign for discussion, debate, and helping students envision bold new ideas. Importantly, the book is full of big proposals for urgent structural change from a diverse group of experts from around the globe and is written in an accessible, conversational style that will allow undergraduate and graduate students alike to engage deeply with the issues at hand."—David Vine is Professor of Anthropology at American University and is the author of The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State