Global Capitalism

A wonderful blend of politics and economics, micro and macro, past and present in an accessible narrative (Washington Post), this authoritative history of the twentieth-century global economy is now updated with a new chapter covering the great financial crisis, the halting recovery, and the retreat from global integration to economic nationalism.

Jeffry A. Frieden's discussion of the financial crisis of 2008 explores its causes, the many warning signals for policymakers, and its repercussions: a protracted recovery with accumulating levels of inequality, and political turmoil in the European Union and the United States. Frieden also highlights China's dramatic rise as the world's largest manufacturer and trading nation, perhaps the most far-reaching development of the new millennium. Drawing parallels between the current period and the decades before World War I, when the first era of global economic integration gave way to nationalist rivalry, Frieden's history clearly shows that globalization is neither inevitable nor irreversible, but a political choice.