Writer and academic, University of Cambridge
John Rapley has made a vocation of working, and living, at the frontier where theory meets practice. After beginning his career at Oxford University’s International Development Centre, he left for the developing world, where he spent the next two decades working as an academic, journalist and ultimately the co-creator and director of a policy think-tank. Along the way, he worked at universities on three continents and, upon returning to the UK, lectured at the Centre of Development Studies at the University of Cambridge. He now lives in London as a writer.
His most recent book is Twilight of the Money Gods: Economics as a Religion and How it all Went Wrong (Simon & Schuster, 2017).
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Demography and migration
The ungreat replacement
Workers in the West have indeed been repressed – but not by immigrants. The policies of their own governments are to blame
John Rapley
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Global history
Plagues and empires
What can the decline of the Roman Empire and the end of European feudalism tell us about COVID-19 and the future of the West?
John Rapley
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Economic history
Economics as a moral tale
The development sector set out to summon the magic of capitalism from the ashes of communism. How is it going?
John Rapley
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Economics
Few things are as dangerous as economists with physics envy
John Rapley