The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression - Hardcover

This is a deliberately provocative book...Prof James has useful things to say about the overstretched expectations that have partly crippled the International Monetary Fund and which are relevant to the World Bank and World Trade Organisation...Political leaders everywhere should keep a copy under their pillow.--Richard Lambert "Financial Times "

"Globalization" is here. Signified by an increasingly close economic interconnection that has led to profound political and social change around the world, the process seems irreversible. In this book, however, Harold James provides a sobering historical perspective, exploring the circumstances in which the globally integrated world of an earlier era broke down under the pressure of unexpected events. James examines one of the great historical nightmares of the 20th century: the collapse of globalism in the Great Depression. Analyzing this collapse in terms of three main components of global economics - capital flows, trade, and international migration - James argues that it was not simply a consequence of the strains of World War I, but resulted from the interplay of resentments against all these elements of mobility, as well as from the policies and institutions designed to assuage the threats of globalism. Could it happen again? There are significant parallels today: highly integrated systems are inherently vulnerable to collapse, and world financial markets are vulnerable and unstable. While James does not foresee another Great Depression, his book provides a cautionary tale in which institutions meant to save the world from the consequences of globalization ended by destroying both prosperity and peace.