Book excerpt: This paper presents an overview of the book Collapse and Revival: Understanding Global Recessions and Recoveries that tracks the global business cycle through the destruction of a global recession to the renewal of recovery, drawing on four major episodes during the past half century. This book defines the terms of global recessions and recoveries; documents their main features; describes the events that take place around these episodes; puts the latest global recession and ongoing recovery in perspective; and analyzes the interactions between fluctuations in the global growth and national growth over the different phases of the global cycle.