A fundamental theme of Dalio is that most recessions and financial crises are driven by the debt cycle.

The first 60 pages or so of his book serve as a highly-accessible summary of how debt crises tend to play out, based on statistics of dozens of instances from the past.

Then, the rest of the book drills down into detail on specific crises as examples. Will a recession be inflationary or deflationary? What policies are likely to resolve it? Dalio shows the historical answers to those questions based on the type of crisis it is.