Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

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An honest discussion of free trade and how nations can sensibly chart a path forward in today's global economyNot so long ago the nation-state seemed to be on its deathbed, condemned to irrelevance by the forces of globalization and technology. Now it is back with a vengeance, propelled by a groundswell of populists around the world. In Straight Ta

Reviews

A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the 2017 PROSE Award in U.S. History, Association of American Publishers #36 on Bloomberg's "50 Most Influential" List One of Financial Times (FT.com) Best Economics Books of 2016 One of Foreign Affairs' Editors' Picks 2016 One of The Economist's Economics and Business Books of the Year 2016 One of The Wall Street Journal's "The 20 Books That Defined Our Year" 2016 One of the Washington Post's Best Economics Books 2016 One of Bloomberg View's Great History Books of 2016 One of Bloomberg's Best Books of 2016 One of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2016 One of Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2016 in History One of the Strategy+Business Best Business Books 2016 in Economy One of Bloomberg View's "Five Books to Change Conservatives' Minds," chosen by Cass Sunstein Shortlisted for the 2016 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award One of The NewYorker.com Page-Turner blog's "The Books We Loved in 2016" Longlisted for the 2016 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, McGill University "The Rise and Fall of American Growth... is the Thomas Piketty-esque economic must read of the year."--Rana Foroohar, Time "This is a book well worth reading--a magisterial combination of deep technological history, vivid portraits of daily life over the past six generations and careful economic analysis... [The Rise and Fall of American Growth] will challenge your views about the future; [and] it will definitely transform how you see the past."--Paul Krugman, New York Times Book Review "[An] authoritative examination of innovation through the ages."--Neil Irwin, New York Times "Robert Gordon has written a magnificent book on the economic history of the United States over the last one and a half centuries... The book is without peer in providing a statistical analysis of the uneven pace of growth and technological change, in describing the technologies that led to the remarkable progress during the special century, and in concluding with a provocative hypothesis that the future is unlikely to bring anything approaching the economic gains of the earlier period... If you want to understand our history and the economic dilemmas faced by the nation today, you can spend many a fruitful hour reading Gordon's landmark study."--William D. Nordhaus, New York Review of Books "Mr. Gordon uses exhaustive historic data to buttress his thesis."--Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal "[The Rise and Fall of American Growth] is full of wonder for the miraculous things that America has accomplished."--Edward Glaeser, Wall Street Journal "A masterful study to be read and reread by anyone interested in today's political economy."--Kirkus "Normally, these kinds of big-think books end with a whimper, as the author totally fails to identify solutions to the problem he is writing about. But Gordon's conclusion offers some admirably definitive policy advice."--Matthew Yglesias, Vox "Magnificent... Gordon presents his case... with great style and panache, supporting his argument with vivid examples as well as econometric data... Even if history changes direction... this book will survive as a superb reconstruction of material life in America in the heyday of industrial capitalism."--Economist "Every presidential candidate should be asked what policies he or she would offer to increase the pace of U.S. productivity growth and to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers in the economy. Bob Gordon's list is a good place to start."--David Wessel, WSJ.com's Think Tank blog "[W]hat may be the year's most important book on economics has already been published... What Gordon has provided is not a rejection of technology but a sobering reminder of its limits."--Robert Samuelson, Washington Post "Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth is an extraordinary work of economic scholarship... Moreover, this is one of the rare economics books that is on the one hand deeply analytical ... And on the other a pleasure to read... [A] landmark work."--Lawrence Summers, Prospect "Ambitious... The hefty tome, minutely detailed yet dauntingly broad in scope, offers a lively portrayal of the evolution of American living standards since the Civil War."--Eduardo Porter, New York Times "Two years ago a huge book on economics took the world by storm. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century ... became a surprise bestseller... Robert Gordon's tome on American economic growth stretches to 768 pages and its central message is arguably more important."--David Smith, Sunday Times "A landmark new book."--Gavin Kelly, The Guardian "Looking ahead, judging presidents by policies rather than outcomes may be all the more important. In a new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the economist Robert Gordon argues that we are in the midst of an era of meager technological change. Yes, we now have smartphones and Twitter, but previous generations introduced electric lighting, indoor plumbing and the internal combustion engine. In Mr. Gordon's view, technological change is just not what it used to be, and we had better get used to slower growth in productivity and incomes."--N. Gregory Mankiw, New York Times "The Rise and Fall of American Growth is likely to be the most interesting and important economics book of the year. It provides a splendid analytic take on the potency of past economic growth, which transformed the world from the end of the nineteenth century onward... Gordon's book serves as a powerful reminder that the U.S. economy really has gone through a protracted slowdown and that this decline has been caused by the stagnation in technological progress."--Tyler Cowen, Foreign Affairs "[A]n important new book."--Martin Ford, Huffington Post "[A] lightning bolt of a new book."--Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect "So powerful and intriguing are the facts and arguments marshaled by Gordon that even informed critics who think he is wrong recommend that readers plow through his The Rise and Fall of American Growth, with its 60 graphics and 64 tables spread over more than 700 pages. You don't need to be an economist to appreciate or understand the book. His thesis is straightforward."--David Cay Johnston, Al Jazeera America.com "What is novel about Gordon's approach to this problem is that he doesn't try to find political causes for our economic woes... [E]xhaustive and sweeping in scope, and novel in its thinking about growth."--Chris Matthews, Fortune.com "[A] fascinating new book."--Jeffrey Sachs, Boston Globe "One of the most important books of recent years... Powerful and impressive."--Cass R. Sunstein, Bloomberg View "This is a tremendous, sobering piece of research, which does a lot to explain the febrile, nervous state of modern Western democracies."--Marcus Tanner, The Independent "A new book by economist Robert Gordon--The Rise and Fall of American Growth--is causing quite a stir."--City A.M. "If he's right, and one links this with growing income inequality, our would-be leaders will have difficulty in making the case for achieving the American dream through steady incremental progress achieved through collaboration and political compromise."--Michael Hoffmann, Desert Sun "Robert Gordon's new book on productivity in the U.S. economy, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, is masterful... Gordon skillfully lays out myriad information about the history and trends of productivity. One can learn a great deal."--Edward Lotterman, St. Paul Pioneer Press "[I]mpressive."--Peter Martin, Sydney Morning Herald "In his unsettling new book, Gordon, who teaches at Northwestern, weighs in on the role of technology in the U.S. over the past century-and-a-half. He does so forcefully, so forcefully, in fact, as to wipe the smiles off the faces of most techno-optimists, myself included."--Peter A. Coclanis, Charlotte Observer "[A] thoughtful new book."--David D. Haynes, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "[The Rise and Fall of American Growth] is this year's equivalent to Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century: an essential read for all economists, who are unanimously floored by its boldness and scope even if they don't agree with its conclusions."--Adam Davidson, New York Times Magazine "Gordon makes a compelling case for why the era of fast growth in America ended around 1970 and will not return in the foreseeable future, if ever."--Dick Meyer, DecodeDC "Gordon argues that we are not going to get another surge soon and that there are several headwinds that are going to work against faster growth, including income inequality, education as a differentiator and not an equalizer, the debt overhang, and demography."--John Mason, TheStreet.com "[The Rise and Fall of American Growth] challenges every political claim, and every pundit's remedy, regarding how to get the lackluster American economy to boom again in the decades ahead, as it once did a half-century or more ago... [The book] represents the culmination of Gordon's many years of investigation into this key economic question of our age, namely: 'Why is it that the American economy has never been able to return to the happy boom years of our grandparents' time' Why is it that, decade after decade, administration after administration, annualized productivity growth has only been about one-half to one-third that of the age of Truman and Eisenhower"--Paul Kennedy, Tribune Content Agency "[M]asterful... Gordon skillfully lays out information about the history and trends of productivity. One can learn a great deal... The Rise and Fall of American Growth is a rare example of a work with solid economics that can be understood, and enjoyed, by nearly any lay person."--Ed Lotterman, Idaho Statesman "As an economic historian, Gordon is beyond reproach."--Edward Luce, Financial Times "Provocative."--Associated Press "The Rise and Fall of American Growth, is a deep dive into the past with an eye to the future... [The book] is part of a fascinating debate about futur

Author Bio

Dani Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the author of Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science and The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.