Lorenzo Fioramonti is Jean Monnet Chair in Regional Integration and Governance Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pretoria (South Africa), where he directs the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation. He is also Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social Investment of the University of Heidelberg and at the Hertie School of Governance (Germany) as well as Associate Fellow at the United Nations University. He is the author of How Numbers Rule the World (Zed 2014) and is also the director of a short film documentary on GDP and climate change, which can be viewed at his blog, www.globalreboot.org.

• Introduction: The world's most powerful number1. The history of GDP: from crisis to crisis2. The Frankenstein syndrome3. The global quest to dethrone GDP4. Change from belowConclusion: Supremacy and resistance

GDP numbers are quoted all the time, but the power of GDP relies on the fact that hardly anyone knows what it means. As Fioramonti shows in this indispensable guide, there are at least three things wrong with gross domestic product: it's gross, it's domestic and it's a product. That is, the GDP number takes no account of the depletion of capital goods or natural resources, treats income accruing to foreign investors as a measure of national success and focuses on the means of economic activity, production, rather than the ends. Gross Domestic Problem explains why GDP is both so useful and so misleading, and gives a readable history of this most powerful and mysterious of numbers.