A clear explanation of why globalization is a boon to all countries.
A look at the benefits of globalization in the 21st century and earlier eras.
In this economics book, Goldberg, an adjunct professor at New York University and the author of The Joint Ventured Nation (2016), provides a concise overview of how economic and political globalization have worked throughout history, and how ideologically driven propaganda and the unequal distribution of benefits have shaped the perception of globalization in today’s United States. Goldberg begins his analysis by taking the long view, focusing on the dominance of the tomato in Italian cuisine, despite its South American origins, as an object lesson and a metaphor for the worldwide transmission of knowledge. The book explores the relative change in the United States’ and China’s positions in the world since 1980, with a particular focus on how both countries have seen economic growth as a result of greater interaction. However, Goldberg also points out that macroeconomic changes have not been evenly distributed across the population. The book explores how foreign investment has driven the U.S. economy since the country issued its first government bonds, as well as how restrictive tariffs have caused economic damage in the past. In the final chapter, the author addresses problems of governance and leadership that have obscured globalization’s benefits in America, identifying key features and trends that have allowed anti-globalization politicians to succeed in driving public opinion and policy.
Goldberg makes an effective argument on behalf of his thesis that globalization is ultimately a force for good, and that the populist objection to its growth is, in fact, damaging: “America’s enemy is not globalization; America’s enemy is America.” He does a fine job of explaining both the benefits and the inevitability of globalization, and he offers readers a useful framework for understanding the distinction between changes related to foreign trade and those related to technological advancement. The book provides a nuanced discussion of “the hard-to-understand but easily exploitable fact that global economics is not a zero-sum game,” while also acknowledging the valid complaints of those who are harmed by an evolving economy. Goldberg notes that there no easy solutions to the problems faced by displaced workers, and that this fosters populist, anti-globalization sentiment that provides no substantive relief. Readers who approach the topic from a populist perspective may wish that Goldberg had offered possible solutions to displacement and job loss, instead of merely acknowledging that such problems exist. In addition, it’s surprising that the author does not include full citations for the many works that he references over the course of the text. That said, the book does provide enough general information about these sources to give readers confidence in them. On the whole, the book does an good job of distilling a complex issue into manageable components. The prose is strong, for the most part, and although a few analogies feel overwrought (“Northeast Philadelphia...had become a modern-day version of the battle of Agincourt”), it’s consistently informative and highly readable.
A clear explanation of why globalization is a boon to all countries.Pub Date: July 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64012-301-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Potomac Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.
Prolific writer Benedict has long blended two interests—sports and business—and the Patriots are emblematic of both. Founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots, the team built a strategic home field between that city and Providence. When original owner Billy Sullivan sold the flailing team in 1988, it was $126 million in the hole, a condition so dire that “Sullivan had to beg the NFL to release emergency funds so he could pay his players.” Victor Kiam, the razor magnate, bought the long since renamed New England Patriots, but rival Robert Kraft bought first the parking lots and then the stadium—and “it rankled Kiam that he bore all the risk as the owner of the team but virtually all of the revenue that the team generated went to Kraft.” Check and mate. Kraft finally took over the team in 1994. Kraft inherited coach Bill Parcells, who in turn brought in star quarterback Drew Bledsoe, “the Patriots’ most prized player.” However, as the book’s nimbly constructed opening recounts, in 2001, Bledsoe got smeared in a hit “so violent that players along the Patriots sideline compared the sound of the collision to a car crash.” After that, it was backup Tom Brady’s team. Gridiron nerds will debate whether Brady is the greatest QB and Bill Belichick the greatest coach the game has ever known, but certainly they’ve had their share of controversy. The infamous “Deflategate” incident of 2015 takes up plenty of space in the late pages of the narrative, and depending on how you read between the lines, Brady was either an accomplice or an unwitting beneficiary. Still, as the author writes, by that point Brady “had started in 223 straight regular-season games,” an enviable record on a team that itself has racked up impressive stats.
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982134-10-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
