Richard Baldwin is Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, and President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London.
An essential book for understanding how modern trade works via
global supply chains. An antidote to the protectionist nonsense
being peddled by some politicians today.
*The Economist*
[An] excellent book…Baldwin’s work seems likely to become a
standard, perhaps indispensable, guide to understanding how
globalization has got us here and where it is likely to take us
next. There can be few more vital subjects today that will benefit
from this sort of clear and comprehensive exposition.
*Financial Times*
Will surprise and illumine.
*Times Literary Supplement*
There is much in this book to ponder.
*Marginal Revolution*
In this brilliant book, Baldwin has succeeded in saying something
both new and true about globalization.
*Financial Times*
Many books deal with various features of globalization. Only
Baldwin’s deals with the logic of globalization. Globalization
happens when the movement of goods, knowledge, and people is
technologically possible and cheap enough to encompass the entire
world. The first globalization was built on the movement of goods,
the one we live today on the movement of knowledge and information,
the next one will be built on the movement of people. It is a
must-read for those who want to learn about the past and to peer
into the future.
*Branko Milanovic, City University of New York*
Sheds a bright light on the nature of trade in today’s era—the
‘second globalization’ since the industrial revolution.
*Financial Times*
The first part of this book offers a breathtaking overview of the
four phases of globalization that Baldwin argues have taken place
during the past 200,000 years.
*Foreign Affairs*
It’s a very powerful description of the newest phase of
globalization.
*Five Books*
Offers a valuable summary of how we got to where we are now. It’s a
narrative that bears retelling.
*Times Literary Supplement*
The Great Convergence offers a compelling framework for thinking
about how trade is organized and why and how it benefits whom…I
can’t imagine a better and more accessible analysis of trade and
globalization in the digital era.
*Enlightened Economist*
In this congenial volume, [Baldwin] adroitly covers 200,000 years
of human trading practices, deploying insights from archaeology,
anthropology, climate science, economic history, political science,
development studies and other disciplines as he goes. He takes us
on a journey from the ancient world to the 21st century, and from
the global North to the developing South, in order to set the scene
for the past 25 years of globalization.
*Times Higher Education*
Baldwin’s work is fascinating…The Great Convergence is set to
become a canonical text within the field.
*The Bookbag*
If the corrosive events of the [presidential election] in America
are anything to go by, economist Richard Baldwin is absolutely,
stunningly (yet unfortunately) correct. That said, this book does
endeavor to change the way we think about globalization—rather than
the future of humanity.
*David Marx Book Reviews*
The Great Convergence is important and accessible in equal measure,
with a balance between examples presented as stories and analytics
set out with clarity and verve.
*Paul Collier, University of Oxford*
This important book should change the way we think about
globalization. There have been two big globalization booms over the
past two centuries. The first caused divergence between rich and
poor nations while the second, since the 1970s, has caused
convergence. With elegance, economist Richard Baldwin tells us
why.
*Jeffrey G. Williamson, Harvard University*
In this deft treatise, economist Richard Baldwin argues that we are
seeing a third wave [of economic globalization]…The first two waves
of globalization were boons for all. The third, Baldwin argues, is
working mainly to the advantage of intellectual-property owners in
developed countries, and of emerging markets able to access
productive global value chains.
*Nature*
Shows how the global production system has moved from trade in
goods and services to trade in information, with multinational
corporations obsessively trying to prevent intellectual-property
leaks to competitors. Baldwin’s analysis has important implications
for both the governance of global trade and domestic
policymaking.
*Project Syndicate*
[Baldwin] doesn’t simply deliver an excellent summary of the
history of globalization with The Great Convergence. He also
describes how it has changed over the last century, and how thanks
to the digital revolution we stand on the threshold of a new age in
the evolution of the global economy…Picking up Baldwin’s book is
like stepping into an economic time machine. How did the west
become the dominant economic center of the world in just two
centuries, generating 70 percent of global economic output? Why did
this trend start to change around 1990? And why are supply chains,
not national borders, the deciding factors for globalization today?
Only after these questions are answered can Donald Trump’s
protectionist counterrevolution be unmasked as the illusion it is.
Baldwin delivers these answers, and argues them convincingly.
*Handelsblatt Global*
In this meaty treatise, Baldwin argues that we’re in the process of
a major shift in world economics and economic policy needs to be
adjusted accordingly…Baldwin has put together an intriguing and
compelling case.
*Publishers Weekly (starred review)*
The Great Convergence is an important text, because it argues for a
change in the way we think about and deal with globalization.
Baldwin disaggregates the monolithic, undifferentiated approach
that considers globalization as a single phenomenon. Rather, the
author argues that there are three major strands of globalization,
and that these strands have been predominant during successive
historical periods. First, globalization consisted of the movement
of goods, then the movement of ideas/information, and, Baldwin
posits, in the future the movement and enhanced functionality of
people. Viewing globalization through this lens, supported by clear
and lucid historical analysis, Baldwin’s view will cause the reader
to think differently about trade agreement, government policy, the
future of work, and other economic and political issues. This
spirited thesis is presented with clarity in lucid and thoughtful
prose that is accessible to all readers.
*Choice*
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