Using a variety of economic, financial, and political indicators, this book demonstrates that the global system has become an 'architecture of collapse'. The global financial crisis of 2008, the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China, and the European sovereign debt crisis illustrate the causes and the consequences of global instability A careful conceptual construction of complexity and coupling... [providing] new insights into why countries are likely to experience more frequent crises. Guillén skillfully navigates a multidisciplinary interrogation of the increasing fragility of the global economic system.