How Countries Go Broke (2025) offers a historical tour of the recurring financial, political, and social patterns behind the rise and fall of national economies. Ray Dalio dissects long-term debt cycles, showing how they move from healthy borrowing to excessive leverage and eventual crisis, and why today’s global debt levels demand serious attention. While the future can’t be predicted with certainty, the book highlights consistent warning signs such as mounting debt, systemic vulnerabilities, and broader forces like geopolitical tension, technological disruption, and natural disasters, that drive what Dalio calls the Big Cycle.
Ray Dalio is the founder and mentor of Bridgewater Associates, which over four decades has grown into the world’s largest and best-performing hedge fund. He is widely known for his deep research into economic history and for building practical frameworks to understand markets, debt cycles, and global power shifts, insights he has shared through decades of investing and writing. Dalio is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Principles. He has been named to the Time 100 and Bloomberg Markets’ 50 most influential lists.