Foreign Policy. “In the annals of forgetfulness there is nothing quite to compare with the fading from the American mind of the idea of the law of nations.”

Grenada. “We might have benefited from a weekend’s pause in which we could have considered our interests rather than merely giving in to our impulses.”

The mining of Nicaraguan harbors. “A practice of deception mutated into a policy of deceit.”

Iran–Contra. “The idea of international law had faded. But just as important, in the 1980s it had come to be associated with weaknesses in foreign policy. Real men did not cite Grotius.”

As the era of totalitarianism recedes, the time is at hand to ask by what rules we expect to conduct ourselves, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan writes in this pellucid, and often ironic, examination of international law. Our founding fathers had a firm grasp on the importance and centrality of such law; later presidents affirmed it and tried to establish international institutions based on such high principles; but we lost our way in the fog of the Cold War.

Moynihan’s exploration of American attitudes toward international law—those of presidents, senators, congressmen, public officials, and the public at large—reveals the abiding reverence for a law of nations and the attempts for almost two hundred years to make international law the centerpiece of foreign and strategic policy. Only in the last decade did a shift in values at the highest levels of government change the goals and conduct of the United States.

Displaying a firm grasp of history, informed by senatorial insights and investigative data, elegantly written, this book is a triumph of scholarship, interpretation, and insight.

Examining new archival material from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, One Law for All? discusses legal transfer and practice in imperial and post-imperial societies, including Russia, Latin America, Africa, and East Asia. The essays collected here analyze the legal sphere as a site of struggle, both in debate and in everyday life, from the level of universal aspirations to particular local practices. The contributors explore the ways in which both lawmakers and ordinary people talk about and actively use the law, thereby telling a story of contested European hegemony, local assertions, and multiple legal borrowings.

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.

The Organization of Firms in a Global Economy presents a new research program that is transforming the study of international trade. Driven by the availability of new micro data sets and innovative theoretical models, it focuses on the level of firms, products, and stages of production rather than on countries and industries. It addresses such questions as why only a small proportion of firms in a given industry export and why an even smaller proportion invest abroad; why exporters tend to be more productive than nonexporters; why almost one-third of international trade takes place between units of the same firm and why as much as two-thirds involves multinational firms as exporter, importer, or both; and why international trade may have been the most important driver of organizational changes in the corporation that have been taking place in the last decade.

Until a few years ago, models of international trade did not recognize the heterogeneity of firms and exporters, and could not provide good explanations of international production networks. Now such models exist and are explored in this volume.

Between 1995 and 2007, financial elites in more than a dozen western European countries engaged in a cross-border battle to create some twenty new stock markets, many of which were explicitly modeled on the American Nasdaq.

The resulting high-risk, high-reward markets facilitated wealth creation, rewarded venture capitalists, and drew major U.S. financial players to Europe. But they also chipped away at the European social compacts between national governments and citizens, opening the door of smaller company finance to the broad trend of marketization and its bounties, and further subjecting European households and family businesses to the rhythms of global capital.

Elliot Posner explores the causes of Europe’s emergence as a global financial power, addressing classic and new questions about the origins of markets and their relationship to politics and bureaucracy. In doing so, he attributes the surprising large-scale transformation of Europe’s capital markets to the rise of the European Union as a global political force. The effect of Europe’s financial ascendance will have major ramifications around the world, and Posner’s analysis will push market participants, policymakers, and academics to rethink the sources of financial change in Europe and beyond.