Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century

by Jeffry A. Frieden

"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." ―Michael Hirsh, 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.

Genres: Economics, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Academic, Finance, Textbooks

576 pages, Paperback

Published April 17, 2007

About the author

Jeffry A. Frieden teaches at Harvard University. He is the author of Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century, and the co-author of Lost Decades: The Making of America's Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery.

Reviews

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

As dry as the Joshua Tree deserts wherein Gram Parsons poked his orange-juice-heir-self to death, but probably the most informative economic history of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century capitalism—because, really, the global part is but an adjunct of the Big Show—handled in the most even-handed and objective manner that I have yet come across. Highly recommended, for if you can endure such a sawdust symphony you will come away with an appreciable understanding of the interconnections between and consequences of the various economic permutations that unfolded across the globe during the past one hundred and thirty years—and this really is all inclusive, as the economies of the communist Second and developing Third World countries are taken on as well, stressing their relationship to the degree of internationality of trade in any given period and the evolution of these non-First World economies into their current systems.

The crux of the underpinnings of capitalism is that it is both cyclical and leveling in its commercial aspect while being evolutionarily dynamic in its effect upon societal and cultural norms. The cyclical component works to evoke antipathy to the system through its cycle of raising wealth and prosperity in breadth and depth—while always ensuring an inflationary spike amongst the sliver of individuals at the apex of the high tide—even as its inherent dialecticality unceasingly exerts a gravitational pull towards a central leveling out, which process, due to the all-encompassing aspect of the free market parameters, actually engenders a momentum that plunges the system into the depths of recession or depression—depending on the heights previously attained and the tempering measures enacted to ameliorate the ebb action—and which creational/destructive nature continually is creating winners and losers. At the same time, its ability to harness human labor and technology leads to great spurts and sprints in the development of efficiency, productivity, and innovation while simultaneously requiring the dramatic alteration of habitational patterns in order to accommodate themselves to the needs of the capitalist economy—and such works a transformational meme upon human societies that inevitably tend to undermine and destabilize existing societal and cultural forms with their concomitant effects upon familial, political, ethical, spiritual, and environmental structures. It is little to be wondered at, then, that throughout its tumultuous history capitalism has been viewed with active hostility by a considerable number of those who have lived within, or observed from afar, its transformational immanency; whilst simultaneously evoking tremendous support and enthusiasm from those whose material well-being has been increased beyond compare, ranging from the industrial and financial kingpins atop the wealth pyramid down to laborers whose tastes of the fruits of material production assuages a fundamental human desire. There can be no disputing that the wealth and developmental levels of the Western World are inconceivable without capitalism—it is also inarguable that, for a vast portion of the Sub-Saharan and Central Asian world, the complexities of the capitalist system have been pitiless in their iron application, crushing the masses beneath the weight of extreme poverty and oppression with no way out and only scrapings to survive upon.

Frieden's main concern here is to bring on board the other principal element in the capitalist economies, that of the antipodes of international free trade versus various forms of nationalist protections for developing and/or established industries. The Golden Age of Capitalism serves as point of entry, an era that saw the British laissez-faire, consisting of unregulated industries, uninvolved (in theory) governments, and a stable monetary component of national currencies fixed to the price of gold, adopted by the trading nations—the majority formerly Mercantilist in form—of the (maritime) world. This early period witnessed a massive expansion of international trade with impressive beginnings for the economies of several South American nations, regular boom-and-bust cycles prior to the steadying two decades of growth from 1896-1914, and a majority of the trading nations agreeing to the gold standard. True to form, the Great War is a crucial part of this story, as it saw a shattering of the global econosphere with virtually the entirety of free-trading nations turning insular and economically isolationist with the concomitant drying up of financial lending. The postwar boom of the twenties was superficially impressive, but its entirety was erected upon an unstable edifice of United States capital and a patched together postwar gold standard; when the markets went belly-up in 1929, efforts to support the gold dollar savaged internal industries and ballooned unemployment while the last remaining traces of bank lending disappeared. The gold standard here proved itself the Golden Crucifix of Bryan's condemnatory rhetoric, and the longer a country remained on it and struggled to maintain currency valuations, the more delayed was its recovery from the crash. Blame for the depression was laid at the feet of international finance, and the turn towards isolationism and walled-off trading blocs became the new norm. One of the best parts of the book is Frieden's tracing of this turning away from international linkages to nationalist autarky—fascist or authoritarian—by most of Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe, and the implementation of such amongst select South American and East Asian imitators, together with the return to strongly protectionist tariff barriers in the Anglo-Trading nations.

When the war ended and the Bretton-Woods system was created, the path was set for a pseudo-international trading bloc of Western nations adhering to a capitalism linked by a gold-backed US dollar, a system that allowed other governments the flexibility of monetary and fiscal controls to deal with slowdowns and rising unemployment whilst simultaneously providing social safety nets and socialist policies to ease the pain of recessionary periods. Pre- and Postwar communist developments are given their due, and he is superb on the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) conceived by South American economists and implemented vigorously throughout both Latin America and the newly-independent colonies of Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. As the Bretton-Woods system began to break down while the Communist world stagnated and the ISI countries struggled with all of the problems of inefficiency and quality-control of protected industry, a new movement towards re-integrating globalized markets began to gather steam. With the dramatic impact of massive price hikes in oil and other resource inputs in the mid- and late seventies, the devastating debt load fostered upon ISI countries by currency devaluation and interest rate hikes—and the sudden dissolution of the Warsaw Pact countries communist structure in the late eighties—the final impetus was created and impediments removed to a renewed globalization of trade. The final part of Frieden's book is a frank assessment of the impact of the global market: its stunning success stories, the countries that have used it as a propellant to growth and prosperity and those who have been flattened by its economic engines and left in even worse shape than they were before, all capped-off by a look at the various anti-globalization groups that have arisen around the globe, aimed particularly at the wealthiest of the G8 nations whose extensive investment of and funding for the remainder of the world has fattened their banks on interest profits.

Thus, we have another cyclical movement in capitalism, the competing interests and systems of the international and national formulations. The former works best with stable currencies and low-barriers to the movement of capital, material, and labor; the latter functions best in an environment where industries are protected from cheaper imports and financial markets are stable. What Bretton-Woods was so successful in maintaining for twenty-five years was traces of the international buttressing implementations of the national; and now, with the energized swing to globalized markets towards the end of the last century, and into the new, we have broad implementations of the internationalist version while the remaining traces of nationalist capitalism are withering away. This has appreciably raised the prosperity of a wide swathe of Southeast and East Asian, East European, and Latin American countries while confirming the North American and West European nations at the top of the food chain—but so much of this rising wealth has come from the metastasizing of financial markets and the endemic instability, the boom-bust regularity of the Golden Age with all of its inherent creative and destructive potentialities. We have, of course, seen how this market gigantism has played out from 2008 onwards. Frieden, in 2006, accurately assessed the potential, even probability, of a serious financial meltdown—one whose early symptoms had already been identified in earlier panics, manipulations, and crashes—as well as the new bindings placed upon governmental policy by the adoption of pseudo-gold-standard currencies like the Euro. In the face of such wealth destruction and economic instability, Frieden cautioned that a return to nationalist protectionism—including mass-movement driven autarky—was a serious possibility. The only certainty is that Capitalism is a system that can never stand still and births its own competition from both its successes and its failures—and as it is moving forward, there is always some part of it that is circling outwards to return to where it was. Neither triumphant nor pessimistic at the end, the author simply points out that globalization has been a mixed bag for the world—though his own evaluation portrays its benefits outweighing its burdens—and one with no guarantees of continuation beyond the immediate future.

This book covers a huge amount of economic history, and Frieden's understanding of the relations and operations of these varying economies is impressive, to say the least, as is his way of using brief summations and bypasses from differing heights and angles to burnish the more clearly how important certain subjects under discussion actually are. Apart from the sere atmospherics of any non-fictional undertaking in which growth rates, material yields, resource allocations, GDP calculations, productivity determinations and currency valuations are constantly being provided and contrasted, the only real flaw in Frieden's lengthy offering is a tendency on the author's part to provide very broad and encompassing statements at the outset of each of the four primary divisions—The Golden Years of 1870 to 1914; Things Fall Apart from 1914-1939; Together Again in 1939 to 1973; and Globalization from 1973 through to the present day—which he then proceeds to somewhat undermine when he follows up upon these broad outlines in greater breadth and depth in the subsequent chapters. Examples of this from the opening section would be early reiterations of the pervasiveness of the gold standard and an ethos of free trade amongst member nations of the world that bend and wobble under the weight of the details that amass regarding how the gold standard was abandoned by a wide variety of its adherents as and when circumstances warranted—ofttimes never to see that country return to the hallowed mean—and the increasing awareness that it is difficult to call such trade free when the vast majority of trading nations—the United Kingdom excluded—had numerous tariffs and duties that averaged out at 25% for agricultural and manufactured products and rose as high as 84% in countries like Imperial Russia. Now, this is all relational subject matter, and there is no doubt that the Golden Age featured a strong adherence to the gold standard and globe-straddling free markets and trade as key elements in the remarkable growth in volume, industry, and wealth amongst the econospheric trading partners in that period—I'm just pointing out the potential for disconnect between grand generalizations and the finer details provided of the latter; and, in any case, these are really the only problems I had with what was otherwise an excellent and quality work of economic history with much relevance for today.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great political-economic history of the twentieth century. There are two ways to read this. The blurbs on the back of the book would focus on the 'global' in the title, and try to convince you that this is a book about globalisation. In some ways it is. But Frieden is unbiased enough that you can equally read the book as about capitalism in general, and ignore the globalization/anti-globalization debate, which is generally fruitless anyway. A much better question is: do we have a stable and just political-economic system?
You could make the argument either way from the facts Frieden provides, but the answer eventually would be, no. But not 'no' the way a Chomsky or Zinn would argue, somewhat knee-jerkly. Instead, 'no' in an informed, reasonable manner: there are too many losers in capitalism, and they are x, y and z.
Sadly, this was published *just* before the GFC, although the causes of the crash are already lined up here- American debt driving the growth of the world's economy, and an increased focus on financial profit at great environmental and social cost.
Also, a great read as far as books like this go. It's not a novel, but it's also not a textbook, and it's generally jargon free. Highly recommended.

Second reading: Still good, though a bit shallow when it comes to more recent years, and much more a history of the global economy in the West than in the world as a whole.

[Brecht Rogissart · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll label this book as one of the best histories of global capitalism coming from a true believer in the emancipatory effects of capitalist globalisation from a social liberal angle - a rare breed nowadays. The book covers regions and developments broadly and is quite thorough. Sometimes I think he forced himself to generalise too easily, for example for much of the Global South, and especially Latin America, he insist that they turned towards "Import substituting industrialisation" as the way forward after the breakdown of the global market in the 1930s. They only really joined the global market again after the 1980s debt crisis made this strategy unaffordable due to high interest rates. In effect he says that most countries relied on strategic autonomy, but I think their relation with the global market was much more complicated than that, and it deserves more theoretical vigour. Furthermore, I like how he gives short biographies every now and then to paint a picture of the historical context.

At best you can say that the book is descriptively strong, in which he is able to summarise a large basket of developments and connect them using capitalist globalisation. His ability to explain and connect those developments theoretically depends on the period. I learned most from his analysis of the '30s, in stark contrast with superficial theoretical input of the pre 1914 period, as well as the post 1945 period. For the '30s period, he basically says that, as a consequence of the territorialisation of the global economy after WWI, the push for larger factories, and the US' refusal to become the new center of the global market, the period created a reaction in the form of two movements: the socialists and social democracy inside the factories, the fascist tendencies of displaced middle classes and petit bourgeois outside the factories. But the domestic situation was also partly determined by the position of the country in the global financial market: creditor nations became social democrats, debtor nations - who struggled most with the crisis due to the absence of new credit after 1929 and the lack of export possibilities to pay off the burden of debt - overwhelmingly became fascist. Frieden proved here that he could write a solid global history in which domestic class analysis is based on the international context.

In Frieden's ideological scheme, the global market and its Ricardian effects will always have a net positive effect on humans. He can at most accept that, within each society, some groups did not profit from globalisation and therefore resisted against it (for example, European farmers after 1870). These groups are always interest groups who's political position is absurdly reduced to their economic determinants. He brands anti-globalist movements in the Global North after 1980 as mostly just workers fearing for their wages being set in Beijing, and their call for higher environmental standards are mostly just a form of protectionism. The political backbone of this movement, in which global markets had reversed the political grip over market forces, forcing the states - where the socialist movement had built their material power - to strip their welfare infrastructure, is absent.

Moreover, in this Ricardian global market, and this is what I hated the most about the book, violence is completely absent. Imperialism between 1870-1914? Nah, nothing to do with globalisation. Frieden only spends time on Leopold II as a horrible example of the atrocities, but he simultaneously pushes the example out of the globalisation-framework. Why? Because he did not function on the principles of the free market! What a strange argument to make, Leopold II's horrible practices were compeletly geared towards efficient extraction of the country's resources for the global market. Did he also shelter the internal (investment) market from foreign competition to keep power? Surely, but to therefore act as if the global market was not a necessary precondition for this brutal rule, and even "rewarded" him for his notorious actions? Not even a little sentence spent on it.

The same goes for his depiction of the decaying non-Western empires of the period: the Chinese and the Ottoman. According to him, their fall into irrelevance, internal tension, imperial overtake, is their own fault: the elites of these empires were shielding themselves from the fruits of globalisation because they thought they would lose power! There is a total disregard here of the violent nature of "globalisation" for these empires, of which the Opium Wars are the best example. For these empires, globalisation was a looming, threatening force coming from Western powers in the form of gunboat diplomacy from the 1840s onwards. Integration in the global market was not a neutral level-playing field, the global market was inherently violent on its fringes.

The same goes for the causes of World War I. There's 4 decades of strong economic integration of a variety of countries, now related to each other through economic competition. In 1914 they start murdering eachother. Is there a connection? Not at all! Frieden just ignores WWI all together, probably because he thinks there's no reason to think there's an economic cause for WW I. He just gives a history up until 1914, forgets about 4 years, then resumes after 1918. Mindblowing, again.

The same goes for the post 1945 world order. Decolonisation is set in motion, and according to Frieden we have to thank it all to the US and their stance against imperial preference since they didn't have any. Ok, sure. But why didn't the US take-over the colonies? Why didn't it just copy-paste European colonial behaviour? There had to be a shift in capitalism that made expansionary pressures take a new form, explaining why the new hegemon acted differently. And also, why new forms of imperialism took over. Frieden doesn't mention the Vietnam war at all, nor American Keynesian militarism. Dangerous subjects, I can imagine, for they suggest that capitalist globalisation can bring violence with it! Moreover, when we turn to the European perspective on decolonisation, we are also left wondering why some of them only let loose of their empire after intense struggle. For some of the European powers, their colonies were cashcows for scraping together dollars, the most-wanted currency to buy the much needed capital goods. Others didn't need their colonies for dollars and looked upon them more as burdens, and so let loose of their colonies easily. Frieden ignores the decolonial struggle all together, again - I presume - because it would force him to admit: in quest for dollars, colonial powers held on to their colonies by all means.

[Knut Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid faglig bok, som gir ein veldig objektiv og bra gjennomgang av den globale økonomien frå 1800 tallet til i dag. Interessant lesning, men også knusk tørt. Holdt på å knekke lesegleden, så godt å være ferdig.
Anbefales for spesielt interesserte.

[Linda Munro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book I would have chosen to read. It was on the suggested reading list of the World History course I am taking through coursera.com. It was a rather large book, thick with small print; and, although I got the book from t he library I was truly not looking forward to reading it.

It took me some time to get through the book, it’s definitely not a book that keeps you on the edge of your seat, but it was also not a book that you could lay down and never want to pick up again. It is so strange how the economy of not only the U.S. but the entire world are so closely interwoven, it is stranger still how historical events can make or break an economy.

One such particular historical event that not only captured the world’s attention, but also led the economy of specifically, Third World countries was the Vietnam War. Third World countries were not only rooting for North Vietnam (because they felt that a tiny backward country that had the gumption to take on a Super Power like the U.S. who was well hated throughout the Third World for their perceived attitude against Third World economies) but they also followed the North Vietnamese economic plan.

This book only covers to the year 2000, but at that time not only the U.S. but countries across the world had balanced budgets. I think that shouts something about the leaders of these countries that led the next ten years, hopefully, people will start opening their eyes and realize that each of these countries which are now suffering with debt seemed to do the exact same thing; lowered taxes, lowered services and spent like they had a bottomless money pot!

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik had een hele review uitgetypt ma was te bang dat die man dat ging lezen en beledigd ging zijn dus ik ga gwn zwijgen

[Sage · Rating 2 out of 5]

frankly exhausting read. had to switch back and forth every few chapters with this and a book i actually enjoyed to get through it. disappointingly but not surprisingly, this is not a global history it is a history of the great powers and only other countries when they operate in a way that is deemed successful by said great powers. two stars because there are points of great historical writing, but at the end of the day this book is irresponsibly and infuriating, only humanizing the histories when the historical actors are white and when they aren’t it’s crummy macroeconomics at best. loved the in depth analysis on labor organization in the early 20th century but how come american and european actors in the human side of capitalism get close ups while African and Latin American countries aren’t even given names other than the entire bloc of “Africa” and “Latin America” 99% of the time that they are referred to? i also read the most recent version of this book and it’s just honestly written at a standard historians were held to 20 years ago, we can and do do better but white men with tenure continue to get the pass to write subpar histories for expensive publishing deals. would not recommend except for critique.

[Alya AlShaibani · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very comprehensive overview of the economic history of the 20th century, and as someone who has been trying to expand their understanding of economics, particularly of finance capital and macroeconomics, I felt that this was a decent foundation for me. It helped recontexualize a lot of things I learned about in high school, things like the gold and silver debates that raged across the United States in the late 1800s/early 1900s that I didn't really understand when I was younger but that I now have more political-economic background to appreciate.

Frieden helped elucidate the connections between, for example, a country's adherence to the gold standard and how much it's able to adjust interest rates and address changes in inflation and unemployment rates. This is a book where some basic understanding of economics is definitely expected, but even in the moments where Frieden does not exactly spell out for the reader the relationships between imports/exports, tariffs, free trade, wages, interest rates, inflation, employment rates, currency exchange, etc., I thought it was useful just to see the causal links. It helped me learn how to ask the right, basic questions like, why does raising interest rates help with inflation? Learning the difference between fiscal and monetary policy was also a big one for me.

Given the impressive breadth of this book, I also found the comparative figures between countries on things like trade, productivity, GDP, living standards over the course a century very handy. I grew up in the first few decades of the 21st century, so even though I think of myself as decently well-read in world history, I realized through reading this that I've taken for granted the current configuration of international economics. I've become accustomed to a world where the United States through imperialist extraction has sliced open the veins of Latin America, so it surprised me (through no fault other than my own ignorance and internalized Eurocentricism) to learn of how much Latin American nations had developed in the earlier decades of the long 20th century, enough for living standards and productivity levels in Argentina or Brazil to rival some of the European countries. I realized that I had made the assumption that Latin America, Africa, and Asia had been roughly uniformly underdeveloped by Western imperialism before World War II and that I was ignorant of how much variation and change over time actually existed. So it was very important for me to be proven wrong!

I picked up this book with the cautious expectation that the author was a bourgeois political scientist, and while I was right and while this inevitably created the predictable blind spots for him, I was rather surprised that his assessment of communist economic systems was actually pretty measured. There isn't the usual rabid vilification of communism that's so typical of bourgeois intellectuals. One cannot say Frieden takes a "purely" economics approach, absent of any ideological bias because there's no such thing and his bias comes through in plenty of subtle and unsubtle places, but for all of that I do think he strove to be as balanced as he could. His assessment of global capitalism, its winners and its losers, is typical of the liberal supporter of capitalism (maybe even a social democracy sympathizer) who can acknowledge it has harmed some people but still believes that it is ultimately the superior system that just needs to pay more attention to civilization and its discontents and correct for social ills. It is impossible for bourgeois intellectuals like Frieden to countenance that inequality, exploitation, and oppression are endemic to capitalism and that its internal contradictions create war, poverty, and, now, climate catastrophe.

Some of the more glaring bourgeois positions that made me raise my eyebrows:
- An uncritical endorsement of the theory of comparative advantage, in which countries do the things they're good at and don't do the things they're not good at. It's almost juvenilely simple, except it just so happens that certain countries are good at exporting raw materials or have large pools of unskilled labor and certain other countries are good at manufacturing products and have many skilled workers. This is treated as a natural fact rather than primitive accumulation deliberately engineered by imperialist nations to extract from the periphery.
- It was interesting how little the book discussed the possible economic causes of World War I. You would think such a significant historical event would merit some more examination as it represents a milestone where conflicts among capitalists became global on an unprecedented scale, but why the Great War happened doesn't seem all that important.
- NAFTA's negative impacts were essentially glossed over. NAFTA was introduced with the favorable rationale that the Mexican capitalists and American imperialists must have used to advocate the agreement. It increased trade! It increased foreign investment! It increased economic integration in North America! When all of the negative impacts of NAFTA on Mexico in particular were mentioned, it was treated more like the unfortunate effect of globalization that was too efficient and produced excesses—the low trough in a naturally fluctuating system. Such a world view cannot consider the possibility that NAFTA may be neocolonialism at work, and this is emblematic of Frieden's overall approach.
- The section on African nations was quite bad in an altogether predictable "mismanagement/misrule from corrupt governments is what makes Africa so poor despite being resource rich" way. Amusingly, Frieden scolds Western governments for not helping enough and ignoring the plight of these struggling economies, but it seems like he can't take the next step in contemplating that this neglect and contempt from the West might be directly connected to the immiseration of the Africa continent. Accountability for Frieden only goes so far as charity.
- Because this book is so expansive and deals on the scale of nations and regions, Frieden employs a few historical individuals to serve as characters. It's a welcome change of pace for sure to bring us down to the human level, but it's rather telling that all of his chosen characters are capitalists (even the "Marxist sociologist" or Brazilian President Cardoso who literally oversaw the privatization of billions of dollars worth of public enterprises, but sure, Marxist). Not a single character to lift up from the communist camp, who despite tremendous challenges, still managed some incredible, undeniable successes?
- Related to the above point, because of the scale of this book, some of the generalizations felt rather sweeping. Nations are the primary political actors of this narrative, but that means Frieden often treats the nation-state as synonymous with its people. He does, of course, mention the internal clashes between capitalists, manufacturers, farmers, workers, environmentalists, and so on, but the "losers" of capitalism are secondary actors, supporting characters at best.

Despite all my criticisms and all the glaring omissions, this was a genuinely useful book to me. Marxists have always read from bourgeois sources, reading both against and with the grain, and for me this was excellent practice in both gaining a better understanding of bourgeois economics and also combing for the unthought analytical positions. It's only reinforced the idea that there's a lot more for me to learn. If nothing else, the next time I tackle a book like this, I should definitely take handwritten notes!

[Kelsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

To paraphrase Friedan's five hundred pages: it's true that under capitalism vast worker displacement and replacement, discrimination, and (neo-)colonialism have thrived, but so much new stuff was produced that none of it matters! (Except Leopold and the Congo.)

More like a long list of which new goods were produced when than a history, and also feels the strange need to mention Keynes' "homosexuality" repeatedly.

[Andrew Feist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good historical summary. Except he focuses disproportionately on the positives of capitalism while trying to maintain an "objective" approach. Its also overwhelmingly focused on wedtern europe and usa. Basically what youd expect from a liberal finance prof.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeffry Friedan’s book is in many ways a rollercoaster. It’s ambitious and it’s scale is laudable, covering over 100 years of global economic history - beginning with the rise of integrated markets in the 1850’s and 70’s all the way to the year 2000. It’s breadth is fantastic, covering everything from the rise of American Populism and the gold standard, the political economy of fascism and the construction of Social Democracies in western Europe to African Decolonisation, the Battle for Seattle in 1999 and the collapse of Bretton Woods.

The book has a surprising amount of depth considering its huge undertaking, and Friedan peppers what can often be quite dense and technical writing about money and finance with amusing stories and miniature biographies of key figures in economic history from Keynes to Jean Monnet and Fernando Cardoso to George Soros. Statistics abound, and though they can muddy Friedan’s otherwise engaging writing style they’re rarely irrelevant and demonstrate clearly the rigour with which Friedan approached the writing of this text.

Friedan’s analysis is, for all intents and purposes, held back by it’s orthodoxy in many regards. The author tends to have a narrow focus on growth outcomes, and leaves many voices out of the conversation - the lives of women and environmental concerns tend to factor very little into his analysis. There is also a general lack of engagement with critical perspectives and literature on International Political Economy which could have definitely added a richness to Friedan’s analysis and contributed to some interesting debates within the text. Saying this however, his treatment of controversial topics in Economics and Political Economy is in many places remarkably balanced - and there is some nice analysis of labour-capital dynamics in the chapters on Autarky and Social Democracy.

Though orthodox and lacking a critical perspective, Global Capitalism is a good, engaging and extraordinarily broad work. Totalling 476 pages, it’s hardly a short text, but well worth a trail through if you’re in need of a good introduction to the history behind out current iteration of globalised capitalism. Friedan’s key insight is that globalisation is neither inevitable or unavoidable, and requires the political support of nation states to function. With current nationalist-populist movements on the rise, a new wave of Socialist activity and a potential clash between the USA and China, Friedan’s insights could be very relevant for the next decade. The lesson that Friedan wants us to take away however, that global economic integration combined with socially conscious governments is both possible and what’s best for everyone, is yet to be proven.

[Danijela Jerković · Rating 4 out of 5]

Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century
by Jeffry A. Frieden

Globalization is the word used to describe the growing interdependence of the world's economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information.

Globalization of the economy makes unused resources of labor and land used and creates surplus goods to export.

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What are the requirements for globalization?

The characteristic elements that constitute economic globalization are cross-border flows of goods and services, capital, people, data, and ideas.

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Globalization puts pressure on nations to reduce tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to free trade.

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Effects of Economic Globalization...

Globalization has led to increases in standards of living around the world, but not all of its effects are positive for everyone.

Globalization is the connection of different parts of the world.

The resulting spread of slavery demonstrates that globalization can hurt people just as easily as it can connect people.

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“Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.”
~ Ulrich Beck (German Sociologist; b. 1944) Franklin D.

[João Arsénio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Took some back and forward cross reference checking and google searches, to make some concepts clearer.

The “footnotes” of relevant people that contributed to new economical theories and practical applications development, are very relevant. The logical line of thought with a detailed context description, carried me into a journey with privileged view over the landscape!

About the rise and fall of capitalism predictions and analysis, I sure what Keynes said: “this long is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the lung run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again”.

[Jim Rossi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid history. This book did a good job of showing me that the globalism of the 21st century, though unique because of new technology, is not totally a new phenomenon. In some fundamental ways, the changes brought by telegraphs and railroads show important similarities to the Internet and social media. Some things may be inevitable, but others remain a choice, whether we know it or not. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this as required material for a class on global economic relations. Very enjoyable book that does a great job of separating the history of the world economy into four distinct eras and delivering a well-paced narrative to tie everything together.

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good lord this book was tedious.

[Maciek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and full of knowledge

[Low Keng onn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written like a true professor book. Wordy and concise. Got lost a few times, but no denying a wealth of knowledge from the author. If only the writing style could be more engaging…

[Beyza · Rating 2 out of 5]

learned a lot yeah but glad it's over. one of the most difficult reads ever.

[Edward Meshell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another textbook I enjoyed??!! Great global history of capitalism/the international political economy during the twentieth century into the twenty-first.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

very well-written and readable; way too optimistic about the ability of globalization to bring prosperity to all...

[Diana Dolezalova · Rating 3 out of 5]

it’s dry. it’s main purpose is to educate, not entertain, but i still enjoyed it despite

[Charlie Huenemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear and interesting overview of how knowledge of global economics has developed since 1850.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

"International economic integration generally expands economic opportunities and is good for society. The great alternatives to economic integration failed. Attempts to seal countries off from the rest of the world economy in the 1930s were ultimately disastrous. Germany, Italy, and Japan closed their economies and also turned toward dictatorship, war, and conquest. The poor countries and former colonies that created closed economies in the 1930s and 1940s collapsed into economic stagnation, social unrest, crisis, and military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s. Few countries have achieved economic progress without access to the international economy.

But an insistence on globalization at all cost is equally misguided. During the golden age of global capitalism before 1914, governments committed themselves to international economic integration and little else. Supporters of free trade, the gold standard, and international finance wanted governments to limit themselves to safeguarding these policies and their properties. But these governments ignored the concerns of many harmed by globalization. As the working and middle classes grew, so did their demands for social reforms to improve the lot of the unemployed, the poor, children, and the elderly. The clash between classical orthodoxy and these new social movements turned into bitter, often violent, conflicts, especially once the Depression hit. Attempts to maintain global capitalism without addressing those ill treated by world markets drove societies toward polarization and conflict."

[Jonathan Grim · Rating 2 out of 5]

A work that walks you through international political economy of the last 150 years. No value judgments or criticisms, just statements of how the author interprets history.

[Johnsonk5 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quote on the cover refers to the book as "Magisterial" and, while these quotes are normally gibberish, this one is highly applicable. Global Capitalism was extraordinary in it's scope and yet it seemed to sacrifice nothing as far as depth was concerned.

Frieden covers the history of global capitalism from the end of the infamous British corn laws which signaled the end of mercantilism, all the way up to the 2008 financial crisis (and query on whether that will signal the end of the current economic order).

All the major players are here: Rothschild, Keynes, Acheson and Volcker among others. And he covers events as grand in scale as the Great Depression as well as events as granular as the failure of the Morogoro shoe factory in Tanzania. The view of the author seems to be overwhelmingly in favor of global capitalism and free trade, but he doesn't shy away from showing you the flaws of such a system. We don't just here the voice of the economists but also the voices of the critics, the protestors and the activists.

Definitely a must read for people who want to understand global politics and economics.

[Vivek Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative and tedious read. As the title mentions, the book explains the highs and lows of global integration from the 1870s to 2000. Some details have been understandably cut short, others not. Overall a good economic history of the 20th century. Although the author has tried hard to stay neutral, I found a little inclination towards neo-liberalization. The impediments to Indian economic growth caused by British colonialization was surprisingly skipped. The book also fails to mention the various ways in which IMF and WTO compel developing countries to adopt neo-liberal measures which often result in national crises. But I do recommend everyone to read this book. I am glad I did.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like others have mentioned, it's a dry, dry read. That being said, it's relatively quick and easy to pick up once you get used to it. Frieden does a wonderful job of covering the rise of capitalism to its place as the economic system. To do this without arguing for its continuance or destruction is no easy task, but Frieden stays as neutral on the subject as I think it's possible to be, allowing readers to decide for themselves what to think.

[Boris Nikolaj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great topic. Thorough analysis and nice refresher. However - there is little that is new and the stories and arguments are repeated over and over again - combined with the frequent escapades into marginal topics. This makes the book long for what it really tries to express. It's a great read for those unfamiliar with Economic History of the 20th century but tedious for those who have followed the developments of the last 120 years.