Pop Internationalism [Hardcover]

Paul R. Krugman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1996

"Everything Mr. Krugman has to say is smart, important and even fun to read. Paul Krugman is no household name, but probably should be . . . he is one of a handful of very bright, relatively young economists who do everything well."
-- Peter Passell, "New York Times Book Review" "Pop internationalists" -- people who speak impressively about international trade while ignoring basic economics and misusing economic figures are the target of this collection of Paul Krugman's most recent essays. In the clear, readable, entertaining style that brought acclaim for his best-selling "Age of Diminished Expectations," Krugman explains what real economic analysis is. He discusses economic terms and measurements, like "value-added" and GDP, in simple language so that readers can understand how pop internationalists distort, and sometimes contradict, the most basic truths about world trade.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A collection of essays about international trade seems destined to be a snoozer, but Paul Krugman, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, somehow manages to write about an arcane subject in a lively manner that is actually entertaining. Krugman contends that many who are famed as experts on world trade actually misunderstand the subject completely, and he provides a startling commentary on some notables, from Lester Thurow to Ross Perot. Yet Krugman comes not merely to destroy; a reader can gain from his essays some real insight into economics, not to mention which economic commentators know their stuff. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Conventional wisdom holds that foreign competition endangers U.S. jobs, that Americans must learn to compete in an ever-tougher global marketplace and that we can do so only by forging a partnership between government and business. But in Krugman's dissenting view, this consensus is nonsense?"pop internationalism," a set of misleading cliches reinforced by economists and pundits such as Lester Thurow, Robert Reich, Clyde Prestowitz and James Fallows. In these stimulating, maverick essays, reprinted from Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, Harvard Business Review and elsewhere, Stanford economics professor Krugman (The Age of Diminished Expectations) argues that the growth of Americans' real income has slowed almost entirely for domestic reasons. He also defends the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), deflates the myth of Asia's miraculous economic boom and warns that our obsession with competitiveness distorts U.S. economic policy by encouraging protectionism and trade wars.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 221 pages
• Publisher: Mit Pr (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262112108
• ISBN-13: 978-0262112109
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,306,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Krugman is the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. He writes a twice-weekly op-ed column for the New York Times and a blog named for his 2007 book "The Conscience of a Liberal." He teaches economics at Princeton University. His books include "The Accidental Theorist," "The Conscience of a Liberal," "Fuzzy Math," "The Great Unraveling," "Peddling Prosperity," and two editions of "The Return of Depression Economics," both national bestsellers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear Thinking, Compact, and Ruthlessly Correct, May 21, 2007

By 

Michael J. Hicks - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pop Internationalism (Paperback)

I am an economics professor, and find this book an absolutely fantastic antidote to the alarmist crap (and dogmatic resistance to inconvenient facts) offered by foes of international trade. This book is easy to read and digest, and the data and ideas Krugman presents so clearly do not require any economic education beyond the ordinary undergraduate level. I hearitly recommend the book to anyone dazzled by fears of China or threats to U.S. manufacturing.

Easily the most entertaining part of this book is Krugman's treatment of Lester Thurow, Paul Kennedy and others who spent the 1990's extending wooly headed thinking to its local maximum. Modern writing on economics is awash in charlatans and cranks, and Krugman dispenses with them in a way to set the standard.

I re-read this book every few years and recommend it to all my grad students in economics as an example of communicating ideas with simple elegance.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, concise, but sometimes repetitive, December 16, 2001

By 

Carl A. Redman (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pop Internationalism (Paperback)

I am no expert on economics, having only taken basic classes in college, but Paul Krugman SEEMS right in his book "Pop Internationalism." Krugman, the op-ed columnist for the New York Times and Slate magazine and also a professor at Princeton University, published this collection of essays, articles, and speeches back in 1996.

Perhaps the publishing date brings about the only weakness, as much of the talk seems less appropriate for today's economy. But the reviews of old topics like NAFTA and the Eastern economy is still good information, and presented clearly and concisely.
Krugman put this collection together to inform people of the latest trend of beliefs in international economics, a trend that is dead wrong in Krugman's eyes. And so we have his term of "pop internationalism."

The basic idea of pop internatiolism is that the U.S. does not depend on international trade as much as the "experts" portray. Very little of our GNP is actually in exports, and we are seemingly doing just fine as the world market becomes more "global." Krugman is so concise in this point that many of the essays actually repeat the point over and over. This is okay though (at least for me), because I understood it better reading it again.

The book is a quick read, and is divided into four secions: A Zero-Sum World, Economic Theory -- Good and Bad, The Emerging World, and Technology and Society.

As far as Krugman being correct in his economic thinking, get back to me after I read some of the "pop internaitionalism" literature from the likes of Reich and Thurow.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars International Economics made easier, September 14, 2000

By 

Enrique Maroto - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pop Internationalism (Paperback)

This is an excellent book in the sense that it helps non economists see the truth about the effects of trade on the Economy. Normally, people tend to overestimate the effects of trade treaties such as NAFTA on the U.S. economy and Krugman helps you understand why this isn't true. Common knowledge normally doesn't coincide with economic truth and people are mislead by such things as trade wars between mayor superpowers or trade wars between develop and developing nations. Krugman has the ability of explaing such glamorous issues in layman's terms and that's why this book is great.