The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to.. [Hardcover]

Patrick J. Buchanan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998

Pat Buchanan has written a nationalist manifesto, a ringing call to arms, a declaration of war on the globalists even in his own party.... The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy is vintage Buchanan, full of the cut-and-thrust we've come to expect from "Pitchfork Pat," the populist Prophet of Protectionism.

As unlikely as it would appear for a book devoted to economics, Betrayal is a real page-turner, an historical thriller. Pat goes at revisionism hammer and tong, retrieving the real story of America in the Gilded Age, restoring a balanced view of the robber barons and putting to flight the myth that the Smoot-Hawley tariff brought on the Great Depression, bread lines, Hoovervilles, Hitler and World War II.

The Great Betrayal from Pat Buchanan: Get it and read it!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Political pundit and two-time Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is best known for his sharp-edged cultural conservatism. The Great Betrayal, however, is an economic manifesto that promotes what Buchanan calls "economic nationalism." Buchanan believes that free trade serves the interests of Wall Street, not Main Street. Transnational corporations rake in huge profits, but ordinary Americans see few benefits. Instead, they suffer from free trade's bad consequences: flat wages for workers, increased drug trafficking, and environmental deterioration. Markets should serve people, says Buchanan, not the other way around. "The economy is not the country; the country comes first," he writes. Buchanan offers a protectionist political agenda--one that many modern conservatives may not like, but one that Buchanan says puts him in the fine tradition of Washington, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. A forceful polemic challenging elite economic opinion. -- John J. Miller

From Library Journal

Everyone's favorite right winger clobbers the global economy.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316115185
• ISBN-13: 978-0316115186
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #421,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FREE TRADE EXTREMISTS: READ THE BOOK BEFORE YOU REVIEW IT!, July 1, 2000

By 

Cherilyn Gulbrandsen (New Canaan, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to.. (Hardcover)

I HAVE READ THIS BOOK--every word. Criticisms by many reviewers here show they didn't read it at all or perhaps only partially.

This book brilliantly sheds the shackles of revisionist history and documents the successes of economic protectionism. Buchanan shows how Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" has been completely misread by free traders. He quotes Milton Friedman who says that Smoot-Hawley had nothing to do with the stock market crash. (It crashed 8 months BEFORE the tariff bill was even passed!)

Mr. Buchanan's solutions are not completely wrapped up in tariffs, as another reviewer stated. He forgot to read the final chapter where Buchanan outlines a mix of tax, trade, and capital-accumulation policies. Wouldn't you love a tax system that didn't require the burdensome IRS reporting we now have? It's in this book.

If Buchanan's practical policies are implemented, within five years the following would happen: Trade deficits would disappear; vulnerability to global financial crises would vanish; factories would spring up; millions of manufacturing jobs would be created; the demand for American workers and their pay scales would rise; the tax burden on American families would lighten; and America would be more self-reliant (no more OPEC handcuffs).

Buchanan crushes the Ivory Tower theories of free trade economists who should be grateful for the very policies they criticize: job protection! Let's see how they'd feel about "free trade" if their 100% Tenure Tariff were removed. Maybe then their free trade theories would not be so extremist.

There once was a higher value in America than The Bottom Line. It was called Freedom. Reading this book should be a requirement for every history teacher, economics professor and student in America who wants to PROTECT it.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We knew how to do it in the past ...but got led astray., October 23, 2003

By 

J. Guild (Toronto,Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to.. (Hardcover)

Buchanan has exposed this modern age version of Free Trade for what it is ,a dumb sellout.A trade means to exchange for something comparable and the West has received nothing beneficial
in return for the loss of industries and jobs that have been moved to countries which use starvation wages and dismal human rights and conditions to produce the goods we have produced for many years.Leaving our workers without jobs and the country losing them as taxpayers.After all this, the goods are sold back here at prices no lower than if they had been made here.The idea that this would benefit the workers in these third world countries has been a fraud as the benefits have never been allowed to trickle down.
Free trade has been a monumental failure ,or as Buchanan claims a Betrayal.
The problem with what is going on now is that two Maxims are being ignored:
First;you should never trade for something that you've already got.
and
Second;You can't continue to trade with someone who has a lower standard of living than you have.It will only keep his low or bring yours down.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pat Buchanan's plan to restore America to greatness, April 26, 1999

By 

Patrick W. O'Hara "taparaho" (Salt Point, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to.. (Hardcover)

Any negative review about this book could not have been written by anyone who read it. Buchanan writes about Our Great Nation and its slide into a declining standard of living that has been breaking down the Nation since the age of Free trade in America.

Buchanan documents quite well where America once was economically and socially, and its slow decline into globalization. He makes a good case backed up with solid reason and evidence that America should revert back to a "protectionist" system of trade, whereby tarriffs would be applied to foriegn imports that serve to destoy American industry.

Buchannan makes a case that "protectionism" in the past paid off national debts, brought about a balanced budget, a surplus funds, lower taxes, and a higher standard of living. Buchanan points out that free trade only works when everyone plays by the rules.

The book has solid statistical information and a lot of historical perspectives that most people never learned in school. My only criticsm of this book is the many historical quotes that slowed the book down for me as I reflected on what events were occurring at that time.

No doubt I am a better person for reading Buchanan's perspective