*Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy*

That is the new, magisterial, and comprehensive history by Douglas A. Irwin, just arrived in my hands and due out November 27.  It is likely the best history of trade policy to be written, 821 pp., the questions it covers include:

How did Jefferson’s trade embargo in 1808 affect the economy?  Did high tariffs promote America’s industrialization in the nineteenth century?  Did the Hawley-Smoot tariff of 1930 exacerbate or ameliorate the Great Depression?  Were liberal trade policies after World War II responsible for the economic prosperity experienced in the postwar period?  Did trade with China in the early 2000s destroy jobs in manufacturing?

Most of all, this book focuses on the determinants of US trade policy.  I am just starting to make my way through it, highly recommended, readable too, and of course all of these issues matter more than you thought they were going to.  You can pre-order here.

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