Ruchir Sharma penned the international bestseller Breakout Nations and is a contributing op-ed writer at the New York Times. His commentary has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and other publications. He is chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, based in New York.

This short primer distils Ruchir Sharma's decades of global analytic 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 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 knowledgeable locals, not evil foreigners; how debt crises start in private companies, not government; and why 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.