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Summary:
"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written."—New York Times Book Review
In 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.
Globalization is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. Jeffry A. Frieden's insightful history explores the golden age of globalization during the early years of the century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again toward global integration at the end of the century. His history is full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
fantastic book
Customer Rating:
This was one of the best business books that I have ever read. It provides a thorough overview of the history of business globalization, yet it is not academic at all. Although it is long and has a few, short dry spots, it is an easy read that is engaging from beginning to end. The lessons from history are very applicable today. I highly recommend the book to anyone that works for a global company or wants to understand the forces of globalization and the impacts on our economy today.
HAPHAZARD NARRATIVE; AUTHOR HAS VERY WEAK UNDERSTANDING OF SUBJECT MATTER
Customer Rating:
Of all the many books that have come out in recent years about global capitalism, finance and economics, this is certainly the worst. The author, a professor of government at Harvard, professes to specialize in international monetary history, but is really what his tenure title says he is, a professor of International Peace. He appears to be trying to reinvent his career by tackling the subject of capitalism but thoroughly lacks understanding of the subject matter, as made evident by his book.
1. The author makes the same mistake that virtually all political science professors do when they write about capitalism: he glorifies the gold standard, he glorifies the Rothschilds and glorifies everything that had nothing to do with the emergence of twentieth century capitalism. The author is using his expertise in international relations to analyze a subject that is really never about governments, or grand alliances or fancy bankers. He thus fails to root the story in the advent of technology, or of business procedures or of the individual investor, but focuses instead of John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson and Lord Halifax.
2. Wherever the subject matter is strong, the book still fails badly. It does so because political economy is better analyzed by Robert Gilpin and others, whose books are mandatory reading and well written and which do not pretend to sell that subject matter as a study of capitalism.
3. The book's sections are surprisingly badly arranged. Sometimes one feels the author may have a method to the madness but I doubt it after having read it. It is certainly not thematic, or designed to trigger thought or chronological.
4. The book refers to a poem only twice in the 500 pages and it is about the King of Ghana! I mean a professor at Harvard should surely know how to maintain balance in his subject matter. Is that the one poem he could find worth including?
5. Stunning is the lack of understanding of the issues. He describes Britain as fully supportive of free trade mid-19th century but fails to consider how colonialism could be a form of free trade. He describes China Turkey and India as the only failures of the early 20th century without making the same connection with colonialism.
6. Worse is his understanding of the gold standard. He never mentions that that relic was responsible for more misery than anything other than world wars. He fails to consider that since the gold standard was weakened in the Forties, there have been NO PANICS RAVAGING SOCIETY. He is a gold bug.
7. He repeats William Bryan's Cross of Gold speech twice in the narrative with no suggestion that he is even aware his haphazard narrative is repeating the same quote. He also fails to mention that William Bryan was not buried in the election of 1896 but actually came to dominate the 20th century, what with unionism, minimum wages, no gold standard, empowerment of the individual investor and every other idea that Bryan first espoused. TR's and FDR's reforms were nothing if not Bryanism.
8. Why would a book mention so much about Rothschild's and their family in the US without mentioning Jacob Schiff, or detailing JP Morgan, or RObert Lehman or Albert Gordon. I mean the author simply has no balance on the subject matter because he knows so little about it.
9. Finally, it is not clear what Jeffrey Frieden is doing at Harvard. Such poorly researched fare is common to COlumbia Business School and its Dean Glenn Hubbard, or to the Hoover Institution or some place like that. Harvard on the other hand puts out more balanced and far more thoughtful pieces.
BAD BOOK THAT MUST BE AVOIDED.
Almost tempted to give it a miss
Customer Rating:
I was almost tempted to give the book a miss after seeing the high ratings that were given by reviewers that seemed to be anti-globalizationists (what an awkward term!)
However, I came across the book at my library and gave it a chance, and I was not disappointed. It is a book that does a creditable job of summing up the ups and downs of the world economy over the past hundred years and more. And it also does a fairly good job of raising some issues and problems with the world economic system, and how the system had evolved to meet those issues and problems. On the whole, I think it's a balanced book, pointing out the critical need for free and integrated markets to raising millions in the world out of poverty, as well as some of the problems facing them.
The only reason why I gave the book a four rather than a five is that it is not an easy read, and it is best read with some thought and analysis on the reader's part. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not something for everyone.
By the way, do ignore those reviews that pretend to tell you what the author was saying in his book. I'm not sure that he's actually saying what they say he is saying.
Read the book for yourself. It's worth the time and effort.
Globalization 2.0
Customer Rating:
Jeffrey Frieden, a Harvard professor specializing in international trade and finance, has written a masterly and comprehensive history of capitalism from 1870 to the present. His history of globalization reminds us that it is not a recent develpment and that its current success is not guaranteed.
The first era of globalization (1870 to 1914) had many of the same characteristics as today's. There was an unprecedented cross-border movement of goods, capital, and labor. (Labor more so in the first era.) During these years huge amounts of capital moved overseas to America, Canada, and Argentina mainly due to the reduced costs of communication and transportation. The technologies driving this globalization were the telegraph and railroads. It was also facilitated by the fact that most currencies were convertible to gold. The investment in the Americas was also followed by a huge immigrant population. In these years, America, Canada, and Argentina had much larger immmigrant populations at the turn of the 20th century than today.
The main thing that distinguishes the present globalization from the first is what happened in between. After the Great Depression and World War II remedies were put into place to mitigate the damaging effects of these economic and social catastrophes. Social benefits such as unions, minimum wage, healthcare and pensions were established as safety nets. In the era between the two globalizations when economies were mostly national the safety nets were part of the social contract between capital and labor.
In 1980, when our current era of globalization begins, capital began to move overseas again in order to find countries with lower labor and social costs. This time, however, labor did not follow. The industrialized countries now have large middle classes with social benefits promised who are not certain about how they are going to be paid. This is causing many in the industrialized world to have second thoughts about our current phase of globalization.
Frieden has a guarded optimism about global capitalism and thinks it is still the best system for distributing wealth. Yet, his last chapter "Global Capitalism Troubled" points to some more clouds on the horizon. There seems to be a growing gap between those who control capital and those who work for a living. People understand that globalization is inevitable but they want a new set of rules to address the growing inequalities.
Frieden is a cheerleader for a more equitable capitalism that can deliver both social benefits and robust economic growth.
Bottom Line: Unfettered Capitalism is Destructive, Need Government
Customer Rating:
I read books in groups, and bought this one along with David Walsh's "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations" which I recommend above this one is you are only buying one book. I also read and have reviewed "Global Class Wars" as well as all other books I recommend below.
Although I was less interested in the history, which is very well documented and clearly explained, and more in the lessons for the future, I found two clear bottom lines in this book that are supported by its extensive research:
1) Open societies and open democracies generate more money and more opportunity and more innovation than closed or failed societies; and
2) Keynes was right, there is an urgent vital role for government to play in addressing the social networks, including education, transportation, rules of commerce, and so on, that allow capitalism to work.
The author distinguishes between individual, cooperative, and competitive capitalism, and I found validation in this book for my concept of communal capitalism, a capitalism that is guided by government in avoiding the exportation of jobs, the importation of poverty, and the impoverishment of the middle class.
Unlike David Walsh's book, this book has more of a focus on what is moral and pragmatic, and so I recommend William Greider's "The Soul of Capitalism" as well as John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."
I have a very strong feeling from this book and others, that the era of "out of control" capitalism is drawing to an end. We may even see the end of the corporation as a separate legal personality in the next 12 years. The transparency of information that is available when people attach themselves leech-like to a corporation and hold it accountable (see my review of "No Logo") is creating a powerful antidote against the Enrons and Exxons and Wal-Marts of the world who bribe elites and screw over the publics on both ends. I also see Wall Street losing its ability to "explode the client" (see my review of "Liar's Poker"). A great deal of good will be done in the next quarter century, and it will come from a combination of good government and educated engaged citizens working together across all boundaries.
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