Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters

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.

About the Author :
Anthea Roberts is Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at Australian National University and author of the prizewinning Is International Law International? In 2019, she was named the world’s leading international law scholar by the League of Scholars. Nicolas Lamp is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University, Ontario. He was previously a dispute-settlement lawyer at the World Trade Organization and has published widely on international trade lawmaking.

Review :
Roberts and Lamp give their readers a useful framing to understand today’s—and tomorrow’s—fights about the world economy. This important volume brings much-needed clarity to the narratives that frame political and economic debates about the future of globalization…The authors are to be commended for the breadth of research supporting this book and for bringing insights from other disciplines to the question of how to think and make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. Policymakers and business leaders will appreciate this levelheaded and wide-ranging look at a hot-button issue. Roberts and Lamp set out to disrupt our intellectual inertia, first by mapping out the six major Western narratives of globalization, then exploring how those narratives drive policies, for better or worse. This book is highly informative and will certainly appeal to a wide audience interested in identifying the main themes driving the US attitude towards free trade and confrontation with China. Six Faces of Globalization is a very smart book, and not just for people interested in globalization. The authors manage to help readers understand the many faces of globalization by identifying multiple narratives that fuel different political movements and perspectives of the punditocracy. Ultimately, however, this is a book not just about globalization, but also about the power and importance of narrative: how it is constructed and how it can contribute to a far more nuanced and complex understanding of the forces of change. Highly recommended. At a time when many of us have only one view of the world, so much so that we only read the books and watch the media that support our vision, Roberts and Lamp present us with a real challenge: they lay out convincingly and comprehensively many different narratives of globalization and its political and economic effects. The book thus implicitly challenges the narrative that each of us finds most compelling. Like in a movie by Kurosawa, our view of events depends on our position. This book compels us to change our position, move out of our comfort zone, and see the world differently and more broadly. Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp have written a brilliant and extremely valuable book. They process an enormous amount of information but also, crucially, narratives and storylines about economic globalization and offer us a new way to sort and evaluate the various claims that circulate. The debates about ‘winners and losers’ explored in Six Faces of Globalization will be with us for years and will be the stuff of headlines for the foreseeable future. As in the proverbial story of five blind men trying to make sense of an elephant, globalization presents itself in different forms to its proponents and opponents. This immensely useful book clarifies the debates around globalization by developing six narratives rooted in contending values and perceptions of reality. It helps us not only understand the best version of other sides’ narratives, but also move beyond our own conceptual straitjackets. Six Faces of Globalization is not one more big-think, grand-vision book on the world’s problems and how to solve them. Instead, it is 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. It deserves a spot on every shelf of books about globalization.