This volume explores commercial relations between the United States and China from the eighteenth century until 1949, fleshing out with facts the romantic and shadowy image of "the China trade." These nine chapters by specialists in the field have developed from papers they presented at a conference supported by the national Committee on American-East Asian Relations.

The work begins with an Introduction by John K. Fairbank, then moves on to analysis of the old China trade up to the American Civil War, centering on traditional Chinese exports of tea and silk. A second section deals with American imports into China--cotton textiles and textile-related goods, cigarettes, kerosene. Finally, the impact of the trade on both countries is assessed and the operations of American-owned and multinational companies in China are examined. For both the United States and China, the economic importance of the trade proves to have been less than the legend might suggest.

Listen to a short interview with Rawi AbdelalHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane

The rise of global financial markets in the last decades of the twentieth century was premised on one fundamental idea: that capital ought to flow across country borders with minimal restriction and regulation. Freedom for capital movements became the new orthodoxy.

In an intellectual, legal, and political history of financial globalization, Rawi Abdelal shows that this was not always the case. Transactions routinely executed by bankers, managers, and investors during the 1990s--trading foreign stocks and bonds, borrowing in foreign currencies--had been illegal in many countries only decades, and sometimes just a year or two, earlier.

How and why did the world shift from an orthodoxy of free capital movements in 1914 to an orthodoxy of capital controls in 1944 and then back again by 1994? How have such standards of appropriate behavior been codified and transmitted internationally? Contrary to conventional accounts, Abdelal argues that neither the U.S. Treasury nor Wall Street bankers have preferred or promoted multilateral, liberal rules for global finance. Instead, European policy makers conceived and promoted the liberal rules that compose the international financial architecture. Whereas U.S. policy makers have tended to embrace unilateral, ad hoc globalization, French and European policy makers have promoted a rule-based, "managed" globalization. This contest over the character of globalization continues today.

China is today regarded as a major player in world politics, with growing expectations for it to do more to address global challenges. Yet relatively little is known about how it sees itself as a great power and understands its obligations to the world.

In China’s Global Identity, Hoo Tiang Boon embarks on the first sustained study of China’s great power identity. Focus is drawn to China’s positioning of itself as a responsible power and the underestimated role played by the United States in shaping this face. In 1995 President Bill Clinton notably called for China to become a responsible great power, one that integrates itself into existing international institutions and becomes a leader in solving global problems. Chinese leaders were at that time already debating their future course and obligations to the world. Hoo examines this ongoing internal debate through Chinese sources and reveals the underestimated role that the United States has in this dialogue. Unraveling the big power politics, history, events, and ideas behind the emergence and evolution of China’s great power identity, the book provides fresh insights into the real-world issues of how China might use its power as it grows. The question of China’s role as a responsible power has real-world implications for its diplomacy and trajectory, as well as the responses of states adjusting to these shifts. The book offers a new lens for scholars, policy professionals, diplomats, and students in the fields of international relations and Asian affairs to make sense of China’s rise and its impact on America and global order.

The present confrontation of Communist China and the United States, on which the future of peace in Asia hinges, is merely the latest phase in a continuing historical process--the remaking of China's ancient society under the stimulus of Western contact. How does it happen that a century of foreign trade and missionary evangelism, of modern education and the training of Chinese students in Western ways, has now resulted in a seeming rejection of the West? What has been the real nature of "China's response to the West" during the past century of our contact?

This volume gives the first inside account, on so broad a scale, of how China's leaders reacted to the invasion of Western arms and goods, persons and ideas, during the three generations from the Opium War to the rise of the Kuomintang. In 28 chapters, with translations of 65 key documents, the authors trace the stages by which the scholar-officials of the Middle Kingdom were brought to recognize successively the need for Western arms to defend their country, Western technology for making arms, modern science to support technology, its application in modern industry to strengthen the nation, and all the attendant new ideas which led them eventually into great movements for institutional reform, political revolution, and ideological reconstruction.

From the famous Commissioner un's first study of Western geography during his anti-opium crusade, through the efforts of Li Hungchang and others at "self-strengthening" by industrialization, down to the critical thought of Dr. Hu Shih and the eclecticism of Sun Yat-sen in the early 20th century, the writings of China's leaders ring the changes on a central theme how to remake their heritage and create a modern nation capable of meeting the West on equal terms. The provincial viceroys, the Reformers of 1898, the Boxers in 1900, the old Empress Dowager, and the eager students studying abroad, each in their own way, all grapple with this absorbing problem. The varied Chinese responses to the West in the formative century here analyzed give us a new insight into the springs of social action among one-fifth of mankind.

The companion volume, for the research specialist, provides Notes and Sources, Bibliography, and a Glossary of Chinese names and terms, essential bases for further exploration of this new field.

The development of modern China’s most important export commodity, silk, is traced from the opening of the treaty ports to the 1930s. This study examines the silk industry, one of China’s most advanced traditional economic enterprises, as it moved into large-scale trade with the West. And it especially considers whether traditional economic organizations and practices encouraged or inhibited the expansion of the industry and its technological modernization.

The silk industry is presented as a microcosm of China’s encounter with the modern world market, focusing on such topics as the role of the state, the relationship between treaty ports and rural producers, the domestic market, and the financing and organization of the modern sector. Such important issues as the “sprouts of capitalism” argument and Japan’s assumption of first position in the modern world silk market are authoritatively and convincingly illuminated.

In 2004, the United States, five Central American countries, and the Dominican Republic signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), signaling the region’s commitment to a neoliberal economic model. For many, however, neoliberalism had lost its luster as the new century dawned, and resistance movements began to gather force. Contesting Trade in Central America is the first book-length study of the debate over CAFTA, tracing the agreement’s drafting, its passage, and its aftermath across Central America.

Rose J. Spalding draws on nearly two hundred interviews with representatives from government, business, civil society, and social movements to analyze the relationship between the advance of free market reform in Central America and the parallel rise of resistance movements. She views this dynamic through the lens of Karl Polanyi’s “double movement” theory, which posits that significant shifts toward market economics will trigger oppositional, self-protective social countermovements. Examining the negotiations, political dynamics, and agents involved in the passage of CAFTA in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, Spalding argues that CAFTA served as a high-profile symbol against which Central American oppositions could rally. Ultimately, she writes, post-neoliberal reform “involves not just the design of appropriate policy mixes and sequences, but also the hard work of building sustainable and inclusive political coalitions, ones that prioritize the quality of social bonds over raw economic freedom.”

“Given the current political conditions, these lectures on race, ethnicity, and nation, delivered by Stuart Hall almost a quarter of a century ago, may be even more timely today.”
—Angela Y. Davis

In this defining statement one of the founding figures of cultural studies reflects on the divisive, often deadly consequences of our contemporary politics of race and identity. As he untangles the power relations that permeate categories of race, ethnicity, and nationhood, Stuart Hall shows how old hierarchies of human identity were forcefully broken apart when oppressed groups introduced new meanings to the representation of difference.

Hall challenges us to find more sustainable ways of living with difference, redefining nation, race, and identity.

“Stuart Hall bracingly confronts the persistence of race—and its confounding liberal surrogates, ethnicity and nation…This is a profoundly humane work that…finds room for hope and change.”
—Orlando Patterson

“Stuart Hall’s written words were ardent, discerning, recondite, and provocative, his spoken voice lyrical, euphonious, passionate, at times rhapsodic and he changed the way an entire generation of critics and commentators debated issues of race and cultural difference.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“Essential reading for those seeking to understand Hall’s tremendous impact on scholars, artists, and filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.”
—Artforum

One of the world’s leading experts on international trade explains that we must look beyond globalization to explain rising inequality.

Globalization is not the primary cause of rising inequality. This may come as a surprise. Inequality within nations has risen steadily in recent decades, at a time when countries around the world have eased restrictions on the movement of goods, capital, and labor. Many assume a causal relationship, which has motivated opposition to policies that promote freer trade. Elhanan Helpman shows, however, in this timely study that this assumption about the effects of globalization is more myth than fact.

Globalization and Inequality guides us through two decades of research about the connections among international trade, offshoring, and changes in income, and shows that the overwhelming conclusion of contemporary research is that globalization is responsible for only a small rise in inequality. The chief causes remain difficult to pin down, though technological developments favoring highly skilled workers and changes in corporate and public policies are leading suspects. As Helpman makes clear, this does not mean that globalization creates no problems. Critics may be right to raise concerns about such matters as cultural autonomy, child labor, and domestic sovereignty. But if we wish to curb inequality while protecting what is best about an interconnected world, we must start with a clear view of what globalization does and does not do and look elsewhere to understand our troubling and growing divide.

Robert Hart’s forty-five-year administration of China’s customs service was a unique achievement. In these letters Hart speaks to us directly from a time long past in China, but a time that may seem only yesterday to a Western reader. The result is a primary source for the history of modern China and the era of foreign privilege there.

Bearing sole responsibility for the Chinese Maritime Customs as its Inspector General, Hart built up an international staff of thousands, facilitated foreign trade, gave the late-Ch’ing court its principal new revenues, and fostered China’s modernity in administration, schools, naval development, postal service, and many other lines. Behind the scenes Hart was also a diplomat who settled the Sino–French war, changed Macao’s status, got boundaries delimited with Burma and India, and mitigated the disasters of imperialism. His career at Peking, coinciding with that of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi, represented the constructive side of the unequal treaty system and Victorian Britain’s informal empire in East Asia.

The publication of the great I. G.’s weekly or fortnightly letters to his confidant and London commissioner, James Duncan Campbell, gives us an intimate, inside view of Hart’s problems and methods. He appraises his employers in China’s foreign office, the Tsungli Yamen, and comments pithily on the complex flow of events and personalities. He quotes the Confucian Classic but, even more, the Latin poets. His personal life is revealed—standing long hours at his writing desk, finding solace in the violin, keeping his own counsel, constantly isolated by his responsibilities. Having no confidant in Peking, he explains himself to his loyal agent in London.

The Hart–Campbell letters, after five years’ editing and annotation and with an informed introduction by Hart’s final successor as foreign I. G., L. K. Little, thus take their place as one of the great historical treasures that bring a vanished era back to life.

The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 were the most comprehensive and devastating of any established in the name of international governance. The sanctions, coupled with the bombing campaign of 1991, brought about the near collapse of Iraq’s infrastructure and profoundly compromised basic conditions necessary to sustain life.

In a sharp indictment of U.S. policy, Joy Gordon examines the key role the nation played in shaping the sanctions, whose harsh strictures resulted in part from U.S. definitions of “dual use” and “weapons of mass destruction,” and claims that everything from water pipes to laundry detergent to child vaccines could produce weapons. Drawing on internal UN documents, confidential minutes of closed meetings, and interviews with foreign diplomats and U.S. officials, Gordon details how the United States not only prevented critical humanitarian goods from entering Iraq but also undermined attempts at reform; unilaterally overrode the UN weapons inspectors; and manipulated votes in the Security Council. In every political, legal, and bureaucratic domain, the deliberate policies of the United States ensured the continuation of Iraq’s catastrophic condition.

Provocative and sure to stir debate, this book lays bare the damage that can be done by unchecked power in our institutions of international governance.

When István Hont died in 2013, the world lost a giant of intellectual history. A leader of the Cambridge School of Political Thought, Hont argued passionately for a global-historical approach to political ideas. To better understand the development of liberalism, he looked not only to the works of great thinkers but also to their reception and use amid revolution and interstate competition. His innovative program of study culminated in the landmark 2005 book Jealousy of Trade, which explores the birth of economic nationalism and other social effects of expanding eighteenth-century markets. Markets, Morals, Politics brings together a celebrated cast of Hont’s contemporaries to assess his influence, ideas, and methods.

Richard Tuck, John Pocock, John Dunn, Raymond Geuss, Gareth Stedman Jones, Michael Sonenscher, John Robertson, Keith Tribe, Pasquale Pasquino, and Peter N. Miller contribute original essays on themes Hont treated with penetrating insight: the politics of commerce, debt, and luxury; the morality of markets; and economic limits on state power. The authors delve into questions about the relationship between states and markets, politics and economics, through examinations of key Enlightenment and pre-Enlightenment figures in context—Hobbes, Rousseau, Spinoza, and many others. The contributors also add depth to Hont’s lifelong, if sometimes veiled, engagement with Marx.

The result is a work of interpretation that does justice to Hont’s influence while developing its own provocative and illuminating arguments. Markets, Morals, Politics will be a valuable companion to readers of Hont and anyone concerned with political economy and the history of ideas.

Mexico was second only to the United States as the world's largest oil producer in the years following the Mexican Revolution. As the revolutionary government became institutionalized, it sought to assure its control of Mexico's oil resources through the Constitution of 1917, which returned subsoil rights to the nation. This comprehensive study explores the resulting struggle between oil producers, many of which were U.S. companies, and the Mexican government.

Linda Hall goes beyond the diplomacy to look at the direct impact of a powerful, highly profitable foreign-controlled industry on a government and a nation trying to recover from a major civil war. She draws on extensive research in Mexican archives, including both government sources and the private papers of Presidents Alvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles, as well as U.S. government and private sources.

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement has expanded United States business ties to Mexico, this study of a crucial moment in U.S.-Mexican business relations will be of interest to a wide audience in business, diplomatic, and political history.

A Financial Times Best Economics Book of the Year
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year
A Fareed Zakaria GPS Book of the Week

“A highly intelligent, fact-based defense of the virtues of an open, competitive economy and society.”
—Fareed Zakaria

“A vitally important corrective to the current populist moment…Open points the way to a kinder, gentler version of globalization that ensures that the gains are shared by all.”
—Justin Wolfers

“Clausing’s important book lays out the economics of globalization and, more important, shows how globalization can be made to work for the vast majority of Americans. I hope the next President of the United States takes its lessons on board.”
—Lawrence H. Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury

“Makes a strong case in favor of foreign trade in goods and services, the cross-border movement of capital, and immigration. This valuable book amounts to a primer on globalization.”
—Richard N. Cooper, Foreign Affairs

Critics on the Left have long attacked open markets and free trade agreements for exploiting the poor and undermining labor, while those on the Right complain that they unjustly penalize workers back home. Kimberly Clausing takes on old and new skeptics in her compelling case that open economies are actually a force for good. Turning to the data to separate substance from spin, she shows how international trade makes countries richer, raises living standards, benefits consumers, and brings nations together. At a time when borders are closing and the safety of global supply chains is being thrown into question, she outlines a clear agenda to manage globalization more effectively, presenting strategies to equip workers for a modern economy and establish a better partnership between labor and the business community.

On September 10, 1960, Venezuela spearheaded the formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (other original members included Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait). However, in a world abundantly supplied with oil, the United States could and did ignore Venezuelan suggestions that OPEC and the consuming nations work together to control production and to increase prices. Then, in late 1973, OPEC sent shudders throughout the world economy, and an energy crisis struck with full force. Emboldened by the power of their oil cartel, Venezuelan leaders denounced the old economic relationship with the United States, nationalized U.S. oil and steel holdings, and fashioned a foreign economic policy that differed sharply from Washington's.

The Road to OPEC is the story of the fiery debates among U.S. oil companies, the Department of State, and the Venezuelan government over oil policies—clashes that led Venezuela to establish OPEC and to nationalize U.S.-owned properties. In addition, this is the first study of twentieth-century Venezuelan-U.S. relations. Its focus on oil diplomacy is placed within the context of key U.S. policies toward Latin America and such programs as the Open Door, the Good Neighbor, and the Alliance for Progress. The author also provides insight into both the politics of the contemporary energy crisis and the growing split between raw-material producers and their industrial customers.

The Road to OPEC is based on extensive archival research, as well as the author's successful use of the Freedom of Information Act to declassify files of such agencies as the National Security Council and the CIA.

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
A Fortune Best Book of the Year
A ProMarket Best Political Economy Book of the Year

An essential guide to the intractable public debates about the virtues and vices of economic globalization, cutting through the complexity to reveal the fault lines that divide us and the points of agreement that might bring us together.

Globalization has lifted millions out of poverty. Globalization is a weapon the rich use to exploit the poor. Globalization builds bridges across national boundaries. Globalization fuels the populism and great-power competition that is tearing the world apart.

When it comes to the politics of free trade and open borders, the camps are dug in, producing a kaleidoscope of claims and counterclaims, unlikely alliances, and unexpected foes. But what exactly are we fighting about? And how might we approach these issues more productively? Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp cut through the confusion with an indispensable survey of the interests, logics, and ideologies driving these intractable debates, which lie at the heart of so much political dispute and decision making. The authors expertly guide us through six competing narratives about the virtues and vices of globalization: the old establishment view that globalization benefits everyone (win-win), the pessimistic belief that it threatens us all with pandemics and climate change (lose-lose), along with various rival accounts that focus on specific winners and losers, from China to America’s Rust Belt.

Instead of picking sides, Six Faces of Globalization gives all these positions their due, showing how each deploys sophisticated arguments and compelling evidence. Both globalization’s boosters and detractors will come away with their eyes opened. By isolating the fundamental value conflicts—growth versus sustainability, efficiency versus social stability—driving disagreement and showing where rival narratives converge, Roberts and Lamp provide a holistic framework for understanding current debates. In doing so, they showcase a more integrative way of thinking about complex problems.

A Financial Times Book of the Year
A Fortune Book of the Year

“This book compels us to change our position, move out of our comfort zone, and see the world differently.”—Branko Milanovic, author of Capitalism, Alone

“A very smart book…not just about globalization, but also about the power and importance of narrative…Highly recommended.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America

“An indispensable guide to how and why many people have abandoned the old, time-tested ways of thinking about politics and the economy. This is the book the world needs to read now.”—Richard Baldwin, author of The Great Convergence

When it comes to the politics of free trade and open borders, the camps are clear, producing a kaleidoscope of claims and counterclaims. But what exactly are we fighting about? Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp cut through the confusion and mudslinging with an indispensable survey of the interests, logics, and ideologies driving these seemingly intractable arguments.

Instead of picking sides, Six Faces of Globalization guides us through six competing narratives about the virtues and vices of globalization, giving each position its due and showing how each deploys sophisticated arguments and compelling evidence. Both globalization’s boosters and detractors will come away with their eyes opened. By isolating the fundamental value conflicts driving disagreement—growth versus sustainability, efficiency versus social stability—and showing where rival narratives converge, this book provides an invaluable framework for understanding ongoing debates and finding a way forward.

The Alliance for Progress was a program intended to stimulate and aid the economic development of the peoples of Latin America. It proposed that the United States and nineteen Latin American republics pool financial and technical resources to aid the peoples of all these republics in achieving better living standards, greater human dignity, and increased political freedom. Although achievement of these goals depended partially upon the availability of external assistance, it depended even more upon the ability and willingness of the Latin Americans themselves to make numerous far-reaching institutional reforms within their countries.

One of the most important needs was in the area of tax reform, which had been made a quid pro quo for the twenty billion dollars promised by the United States through the program. This limitation upon the use of United States funds made obvious the need for a means of evaluating the adequacy of Latin American tax-reform efforts. In this study Raynard M. Sommerfeld presents an examination of this problem and recommends basic criteria for such evaluation. The study reviews the objectives of the Alliance for Progress, investigates the prevailing tax systems in the Latin American republics, and offers recommendations for tax-reform efforts to harmonize tax policy with the economic development goals stipulated in the Charter of Punta del Este.

The author emphasizes and reiterates the fact that thorough studies of the individual countries are necessary for the planning of truly adequate tax reform. He offers the facts developed in his study as interim tools for United States Alliance for Progress agencies in evaluating Latin American tax-reform efforts, for Latin American planners seeking to guide their countries most easily on the road to economic maturity, and for all scholars, teachers, and students interested in the fields of Latin American economics, taxation, and political history.