Home Page Research Book Reviews How Nations Grow Rich

|  Search

Book Reviews

This book's title is misleading. Krauss, a senior scholar at the Hoover Institution, devotes a scant page to explaining how global specialization has enriched the industrial democracies since the Second World War. Think of this book as a less academic, libertarian version of Paul Krugman's Peddling Prosperity(New York: Norton, 1994). The real theme is that government interference with market forces is bound to be harmful. Krauss cogently and succinctly demolishes the arguments of the traditional protectionists as well as those of the "new protectionists": those who see free trade as a threat to U.S. consumer and environmental policy and those who would link trade and human rights. Krauss sees a link between Western European trade protection and foreign aid to Eastern Europe with the aid merely allowing recipients to delay the implementation of market reforms. The most engaging section of the book deals with his misgivings about the drive for a common European currency. Anyone with an interest in international economic policy issues will learn something from this book. Skeptics are unlikely to be convinced, however, as Krauss makes no attempt to be even-handed in his presentation.

David A. Latzko Business and Economics Division Pennsylvania State University, York Campus office: 13 Main Classroom Building phone: (717) 771-4115 fax: (717) 771-4062 DXL31@psu.edu www.yk.psu.edu/~dxl31