In 2020, as the spectre of inflation returned to political and economic discourse, debate hardened around a single number that, in the eyes of inflation hawks, had to be brought down no matter what. But, as Adam Tooze argued, inflation had to be disaggregated — broken down sector by sector, cause by cause, interest by interest.

Disaggregate takes the same view: large numbers and sweeping claims conceal far more than they reveal; they compress interests, structures, and contingencies into a single headline figure. The aim here is to pull those figures apart, to read crises strategically and understand the root cause of events that shape the world around us.