Isabella M. Weber is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a Time100 Next honoree, and author of the prize-winning How China Escaped Shock Therapy. Her forthcoming book, Anti-Fascist Economics, is due out October 20, 2026.
Anti-Fascist Economics
In Defense of Affordability, Dignity, and Democracy
As inequality, inflation, and overwhelming corporate power threaten democracy, a rising-star economist asks what it would mean to create an anti-fascist economics that guarantees dignity for all.
German edition: Available October 13, 2026
UK & US: Available October 20, 2026
“Weber’s bold ideas are helping shift the economic paradigm.”
-Elizabeth Warren for Time 100 Next
Featured Interviews and Profiles
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Die Frau mit dem Deckel
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“One of the twenty-first century’s most exciting economic thinkers comes down from the mountain with a program to restore democracy that will resonate on every continent—a wonderful book by a marvelous mind.”
—Zachary Carter, New York Times bestselling author of The Price of Peace
How China Escaped Shock Therapy
The Market Reform DebateChina has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country's rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China's path. In the first post-Mao decade, China's reformers were sharply divided. They agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more marketization — but struggled over how to go about it. Should China destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market creators?
Awards
Winner of the Joan Robinson Prize 2021
Winner of the 2022 Best Book in Interdisciplinary Studies Award of the International Studies Association
Winner of the Keynes Prize 2023
Hans-Matthöfer Prize 2024
A powerful account of China's reform-era market creation, of acute interest to economists and historians alike — a call to economists to ponder the relevance of political economy.
—R. Bin Wong
