A pithy guide to real-world economics, abridged from Sharma’s New York Times bestseller The Rise and Fall of Nations.

This slim primer distills Sharma’s decades of experience into ten rules for identifying nations that are poised to take off or crash. A wake-up call to economists who failed to foresee every recent crisis, including the cataclysm of 2008, 10 Rules is full of pioneering insights on signs of political, economic, and social change. Sharma explains, for example, why autocrats are bad for the economy; robots are a blessing, not a curse; and consumer prices don’t tell you all you need to know about inflation. He shows how currency crises begin with the flight of savvy locals, not evil foreigners; debt crises start in private companies, not government; and the best news for any country is none at all.

Rethinking economics as a practical art, 10 Rules is a must-read for business, political, and academic leaders who want to understand the most important forces that shape a nation’s future.