100 books like False Dawn

By John Gray,

Here are 100 books that False Dawn fans have personally recommended if you like False Dawn. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society

Marc Fasteau Author Of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries

From my list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class.

Why am I passionate about this?

In the early 2000s, I noticed that lots of good American jobs were being lost to China. I was taught in college economics that trade was always win-win and that the government should stay out of the economy. I started reading the literature and found a number of flaws with these free trade and extreme free-market doctrines. The flaws were there in plain sight, but US trade economists, with vanishingly few exceptions, were ignoring them. Not only were the costs to our economy and our workers enormous, but the frustration of American workers with 30 years of failed promises by both parties has made our politics angrier and more divisive. 

Marc's book list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class

Marc Fasteau Why did Marc love this book?

This book makes the novel and, to me, fascinating case that the economy is an evolutionary system that is constantly changing, implying that the static equilibria of conventional trade models are not usefully predictive. It also made it clear to me, from a different perspective, that the industries in which a country succeeds are path-dependent.

If you are a mosquito, the next evolutionary mutation will not produce an elephant. Likewise, it is much easier to design and manufacture 3 nanometer-scale chips if you have already designed and manufactured 5 nanometer-scale chips. This drove home to me how important retaining the key industries of today is for our long-term prosperity.

By Eric D. Beinhocker,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Origin of Wealth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Over 6.4 billion people participate in a $36.5 trillion global economy, designed and overseen by no one. How did this marvel of self-organized complexity evolve? How is wealth created within this system? And how can wealth be increased for the benefit of individuals, businesses, and society? In The Origin of Wealth, Eric D. Beinhocker argues that modern science provides a radical perspective on these age-old questions, with far-reaching implications. According to Beinhocker, wealth creation is the product of a simple but profoundly powerful evolutionary formula: differentiate, select, and amplify. In this view, the economy is a "complex adaptive system" in…


Book cover of Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests

Marc Fasteau Author Of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries

From my list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class.

Why am I passionate about this?

In the early 2000s, I noticed that lots of good American jobs were being lost to China. I was taught in college economics that trade was always win-win and that the government should stay out of the economy. I started reading the literature and found a number of flaws with these free trade and extreme free-market doctrines. The flaws were there in plain sight, but US trade economists, with vanishingly few exceptions, were ignoring them. Not only were the costs to our economy and our workers enormous, but the frustration of American workers with 30 years of failed promises by both parties has made our politics angrier and more divisive. 

Marc's book list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class

Marc Fasteau Why did Marc love this book?

I was excited to read this book, co-authored by a former president of the American Economic Association, because it proved using the same mathematical modeling that economists love, that trade is sometimes—often, in fact—win/lose.

Specifically, when a developed country like the US loses a large or high-value industry to another country, it loses more than it gains by being able to import the industry’s products at a lower cost. This encouraged me to dig further into the problems with US trade policy.

By Ralph E. Gomory, William J. Baumol,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ralph Gomory and William Baumol adapt classical trade models to the modern world economy.

In this book Ralph Gomory and William Baumol adapt classical trade models to the modern world economy. Trade today is dominated by manufactured goods, rapidly moving technology, and huge firms that benefit from economies of scale. This is very different from the largely agricultural world in which the classical theories originated. Gomory and Baumol show that the new and significant conflicts resulting from international trade are inherent in modern economies.Today improvement in one country's productive capabilities is often attainable only at the expense of another country's…


Book cover of Unsustainable: How Economic Dogma is Destroying American Prosperity

Marc Fasteau Author Of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries

From my list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class.

Why am I passionate about this?

In the early 2000s, I noticed that lots of good American jobs were being lost to China. I was taught in college economics that trade was always win-win and that the government should stay out of the economy. I started reading the literature and found a number of flaws with these free trade and extreme free-market doctrines. The flaws were there in plain sight, but US trade economists, with vanishingly few exceptions, were ignoring them. Not only were the costs to our economy and our workers enormous, but the frustration of American workers with 30 years of failed promises by both parties has made our politics angrier and more divisive. 

Marc's book list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class

Marc Fasteau Why did Marc love this book?

This book made it crystal clear to me why the US cannot prosper long-term without being a manufacturing powerhouse.

It helped me understand how outsourcing manufacturing to other countries not only costs jobs and national prosperity but also makes it less likely that the next important advance in the outsourced industry would be made in the US. Since productivity increases fastest in manufacturing, losing it also slows economic growth.

By Eamonn Fingleton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Unsustainable as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When financial journalist Eamonn Fingleton anticipated the meltdown of the New Economy in the late nineties, his predictions were dismissed by mainstream economic writers as "farfetched. " Now, with the New Economy in ruins and America mired in recession, Fingleton's avowedly contrarian take on mainstream economic thinking is all the more urgent. Written in clear, lucid prose that renders the complexity of the world economy clear to the general reader, Unsustainable is a masterly survey of how the U. S. economy's turn from manufacturing to a more service-based, "postindustrial" economybased on finance, entertainment, and computer softwarehas been an unmitigated disaster…


Book cover of Makers and Takers: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street

Marc Fasteau Author Of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries

From my list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class.

Why am I passionate about this?

In the early 2000s, I noticed that lots of good American jobs were being lost to China. I was taught in college economics that trade was always win-win and that the government should stay out of the economy. I started reading the literature and found a number of flaws with these free trade and extreme free-market doctrines. The flaws were there in plain sight, but US trade economists, with vanishingly few exceptions, were ignoring them. Not only were the costs to our economy and our workers enormous, but the frustration of American workers with 30 years of failed promises by both parties has made our politics angrier and more divisive. 

Marc's book list on US free trade destroyed the us middle class

Marc Fasteau Why did Marc love this book?

When I was an investment banker in the 80s and early 90s, the prevailing mantra was that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country. Nevertheless, I wondered whether slicing and dicing mortgages into different classes of derivatives and selling them to other financial institutions actually added value to the real economy. 

This book made it clear to me that it does not and shows how the overgrowth of the financial sector—rising from four to five percent of GDP in the 1970s to over eight percent in the 2000s—caused the Great Recession of 2008. This explosion of debt was used almost exclusively to buy existing assets, thus crowding out lending for plant, equipment, and research.

The Recession is over, but financialization, a powerful and independent factor undermining US industrial policy, continues unchecked.

By Rana Foroohar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Makers and Takers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Is Wall Street bad for Main Street America?

"A well-told exploration of why our current economy is leaving too many behind." —The New York Times

In looking at the forces that shaped the 2016 presidential election, one thing is clear: much of the population believes that our economic system is rigged to enrich the privileged elites at the expense of hard-working Americans. This is a belief held equally on both sides of political spectrum, and it seems only to be gaining momentum.
 
A key reason, says Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, is the fact that Wall Street is no longer…


Book cover of Economic Sophisms and "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen"

Jeffrey A. Miron Author Of Libertarianism, from A to Z

From my list on Libertarianism.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jeffrey Miron has taught a popular course on libertarian principles at Harvard for 17 years, explaining how to apply libertarianism to economic and social affairs. Miron also serves as the Vice President for Research at the libertarian Cato Institute. Miron has a consistent track record of defending libertarian policies, such as the legalization of all drugs, vastly expanded legal immigration (perhaps to the point of open borders), drastically reduced government expenditure, and substantial deregulation.

Jeffrey's book list on Libertarianism

Jeffrey A. Miron Why did Jeffrey love this book?

Bastiat was a 19th-century French economist, writer, and politician. Economic Sophisms is a collection of short and enjoyable essays illustrating the case for free trade and attacking some economic misconceptions. Many of the essays’ themes and arguments are relevant today, and Bastiat’s critiques of big government are often witty.

In one essay, Bastiat presents a “candlemakers petition” to the parliament for protection against the unfair competition of sunlight, which was flooding the market with a superior product at virtually zero price. Modern critiques of zero price “monopolists” (e.g., Facebook or Google) should take note!

In What is Seen and Not Seen Bastiat introduces the “parable of the broken window” to show that economic resources are fundamentally scarce: resources expended on one activity are not available for others. Centuries later, many policymakers are yet to grasp this insight.

By Frédéric Bastiat,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Economic Sophisms and "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen" as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This volume, the third in our Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, includes two of Bastiat’s best-known works, the collected Economic Sophisms and the pamphlet What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen. We are publishing here for the first time in English the Third Series of Economic Sophisms, which Bastiat had planned but died before he could complete the project.

Both Economic Sophisms and What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen share similar stylistic features and were written with much the same purpose in mind, to disabuse people of misperceptions they might have had about the benefits of free…


Book cover of Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Raoul Martinez Author Of Creating Freedom: Power, Control and the Fight for our Future

From my list on critiquing free-market fundamentalism.

Why am I passionate about this?

It has long been claimed that we face a choice between freedom and equality: that advocates of capitalism favour freedom, while critics prioritise equality. Philosopher Raoul Martinez was never persuaded by this claim, yet it took years of research across a number of disciplines to understand not only how problematic it is, but how foundational to our society and its crises it has become. His journey of discovery culminated in the writing of Creating Freedom, which dismantles this misleading narrative while deepening our understanding of human liberty: the many ways it is subverted and the path to its creation.

Raoul's book list on critiquing free-market fundamentalism

Raoul Martinez Why did Raoul love this book?

Drawing on extensive historical research, economist Ha-Joon Chang shows that today’s wealthiest nations became rich not by following the advice they have long given to poorer nations — embrace free and open markets with minimal state involvement — but by doing precisely the opposite: embracing policies of protectionism and significant state intervention. In admirably clear prose, Chang exposes the hypocrisy of the world’s richest nations and lays out a more promising path of development for the poorer countries of the world. 

By Ha-Joon Chang,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bad Samaritans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It's rare that a book appears with a fresh perspective on world affairs, but renowned economist Ha-Joon Chang has some startlingly original things to say about the future of globalization. In theory, he argues, the world's wealthiest countries and supra-national institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO want to see all nations developing into modern industrial societies. In practice, though, those at the top are 'kicking away the ladder' to wealth that they themselves climbed.

Why? Self-interest certainly plays a part. But, more often, rich and powerful governments and institutions are actually being 'Bad Samaritans': their intentions are worthy…


Book cover of The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization

Scott Waalkes Author Of The Fullness of Time in a Flat World

From my list on the religious ethics of globalization.

Why am I passionate about this?

My plan to write my book clicked after I bought an apple grown in New Zealand, 10,000 miles away from my home in Ohio. How did it make sense that we could buy apples so cheaply from so far away? What was the carbon footprint of that one transaction? Growing up in Michigan in the 1970s and 1980s, I had seen our industrial cities decay as trade globalized. Later I watched with horror as global financial markets crashed in 2008. With these experiences in mind, I wanted to write about both the benefits and the costs of globalization—and about its ethicsfor religious communities like mine. So I did.  

Scott's book list on the religious ethics of globalization

Scott Waalkes Why did Scott love this book?

Friedman, a longtime New York Times foreign affairs columnist, was one of the first to show me what I should love and hate about globalization, circa 1999, at the peak of Western support for neoliberal globalization.

Although his gee-whiz, gung-ho enthusiasm for the world of the Lexus (high-tech globalization with global supply chains and integrated financial markets) sometimes wears thin, he also covers the problems caused by globalization. He even appeals to the need for the “olive trees” of community, family, and religion to make globalization ethical.

Even when the breezy tone annoys me, this book is still my go-to guide for mapping the effects of globalization on business, economics, politics, culture, and the environment.

By Thomas L. Friedman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Lexus and the Olive Tree as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A brilliant investigation of globalization, the most significant socioeconomic trend in the world today, and how it is affecting everything we do-economically, politically, and culturally-abroad and at home.

As foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman crisscrosses the globe talking with the world's economic and political leaders, and reporting, as only he can, on what he sees. Now he has used his years of experience as a reporter and columnist to produce a pithy, trenchant, riveting look at the worldwide market forces that are driving today's economies and how they are playing out both internationally and…


Book cover of Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21st Century

John Zarobell Author Of Art and the Global Economy

From my list on art and globalization.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of International Studies and a former museum curator. This combination provides me with a unique perspective not only on the inner workings of the art world, but the way that those practices map on to broader social, political, and economic transformations that occur as a result of globalization. This leads me, for example, to an assessment of how free-trade zones affect the art market. In past research, I have focused on colonialism and French art in the nineteenth century, so I am attuned to power imbalances between the center and the periphery and I am fascinated to see how these are shifting in the present.

John's book list on art and globalization

John Zarobell Why did John love this book?

This book tears the lid off the globalization conversation because, before this book, nobody had considered all of the ways that the tools of globalization, like transnational shipping and the geographical distribution of labor, could be used to commit international crimes.

According to the authors, globalization’s shadow hides in plain sight, whether we are discussing transnational Mexican cartels, the Dark Web, human trafficking through Eastern Europe, or wildlife smuggling.

One of the morals of this book is that there is always a dark side to success stories and also that the more we generate regulations to prevent unwanted activities, the more money someone is going to make by providing those services.

By Nils Gilman (editor), Jesse Goldhammer (editor), Steven Weber (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Deviant Globalization as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This collection of essays introduces the thriving illicit industries and activities within the global economy whose growth challenges traditional notions of wealth, power, and progress. Through essays contributed by leading experts and scholars, "Deviant Globalization" argues that far from being marginal, illicit activities are a fundamental part of globalization. Narcotrafficking, human trafficking, the organ trade, computer malware, transnational gangs are just as much artifacts of globalization as are CNN and McDonald's, free trade and capital mobility, accessible air travel and container shipping. In fact, almost every technology, process, and regulation that enables mainstream globalization is an enabler of deviant globalization.…


Book cover of Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850

Yasuhiro Makimura Author Of Yokohama and the Silk Trade: How Eastern Japan Became the Primary Economic Region of Japan, 1843-1893

From my list on cities, their trades, and world trade.

Why am I passionate about this?

One of the oldest questions is: why are some countries rich and some countries poor? Adam Smith famously answered that it was the division of labor (specialization) and trade in his book The Wealth of Nations. The more you study trade, however, the more complicated the answer becomes. I have been grappling with this question since the 1990s, as a student, and I still do not have a simple answer like Adam Smith. However, I think I have come up with a framework to understand how the economic history of the world developed and I have been teaching that global history in college as a professor since the 2010s.

Yasuhiro's book list on cities, their trades, and world trade

Yasuhiro Makimura Why did Yasuhiro love this book?

Most people think Europe grew rich through industrialization and free trade. What they don’t realize is that this industrialization was initially started because of protectionism. Prasannan Parthasarathi shows how Britain banned the import of Indian cotton cloth, known as Calico, and developed its own industry. The free trade happened only after Britain succeeded in industrializing.

By Prasannan Parthasarathi,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialised from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing economies. Their subsequent divergence can be attributed to different competitive and ecological pressures that in turn produced varied state policies and economic outcomes. This account breaks with conventional views, which hold that divergence occurred because…


Book cover of Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

Xenia A. Cherkaev Author Of Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice

From my list on the possibility of collectivist modern life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am interested in how regimes of ethics and property interrelate, and how this interrelation informs political thought: in questions of cooperatives and collectives, customary use-rights, and household economies. I'm an anthropologist by training and geographically I work in Russia. I've written about socialist property law and stolen late-Soviet penguins, Stalin-era mine-detection dogs and perestroika-era saints, möbius bands, 19th-century Russian cheese-making co-operatives, New World Order theories of “The Golden Billion” and other important matters.

Xenia's book list on the possibility of collectivist modern life

Xenia A. Cherkaev Why did Xenia love this book?

Mises' warnings about socialism bringing about the end of civilization have entered popular lore a sort of common sense, so it's worthwhile to read the original.

This book is less a scientific analysis than an ode to market liberalism: to “the desperate struggle of lovers of freedom prosperity and civilization against the rising tide of totalitarian barbarism.” At stake is the very possibility of non-market modernity.

Mises argues that modern society cannot function without a market defined by acquisitive trade: individuals' peaceful cooperation hinges on their ability to make rational choices about their production and consumption of things, and such choices are possible only when a system of competitive market price expresses the true value of every commodity.

“The socialist order of society,” he warns, “is not realizable” and will lead to the collapse of (western) civilization itself: “Nomad tribes from the Eastern steppes would again raid and pillage Europe,…

By Ludwig Von Mises,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Socialism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a newly annotated edition of the classic first published in German in 1922. It is the definitive refutation of nearly every type of socialism ever devised. Mises presents a wide-ranging analysis of society, comparing the results of socialist planning with those of free-market capitalism in all areas of life. Friedrich Hayek's foreword comments on the continuing relevance of this great work: "Most readers today will find that Socialism has more immediate application to contemporary events than it had when it first appeared."


5 book lists we think you will like!

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