Harold James: lessons to be learned from the interwar years

At the heart of the issue is the question of how to distribute the soaring economic and fiscal costs associated with the crisis. The closest historical analogy is to the 20th century’s interwar period, which offered a crash course in navigating extreme fiscal circumstances.

Leipziger Strasse in Berlin, Germany, circa 1925. (Photo by Alexander Binder/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

When (and how) to end the Covid-19 lockdown has become the leading political question in every afflicted country.