The History and Historiography of the 2008 Economic Crisis: Anti-Capitalism in Intellectual and Political Transformation

Abstract

This article approaches the 2008 economic crisis as both a historical event and a subject of historiographical debate. Using an intellectual history framework, it situates the crisis within the broader arc of globalization, neoliberal policy, and the post-Cold War ascendancy of economic liberalism. The study examines how the crisis revived anti-capitalist traditions, shaped ideological discourse, and influenced political realignments across the left–right spectrum. It analyzes the works of historians and public intellectuals—including Adam Tooze, Ian Kershaw, Eric Hobsbawm, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, and Naomi Klein—tracing their interpretations of the crisis’s causes and consequences. The article also considers the societal reception of these ideas through movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the parallel evolution of conservative thought culminating in the alt-right. By integrating the history of the crisis with its historiography, the study highlights how the event has been framed, contested, and remembered in early twenty-first-century intellectual life.