An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy is a new history of the 1970s and 1980s. It shows how the sharp slowdown in economic growth around the world after 1973 destroyed the consensus in favor of the welfare state, opening the door to market-based economic policies and the conservative politicians who promoted them. Levinson asserts that the postwar boom was an anomaly and that the disappointing growth rate since 1973 is not a policy failure but rather a reversion to the norm.

Marc Levinson is an independent historian and economist living in Washington, DC. He was formerly finance and economics editor of The Economist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Levinson’s previous books include The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, one of the best-known business books of recent years, and The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America. He received a doctorate in history from the City University of New York.  

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is sponsored jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the George Washington University History Department for their support.