Recent Books
200 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
opposite has happened. Information is
now weaponized, and one country can
come close to destroying another “almost
without touching it.”
Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO
and the Postwar Global Order
BY TIMOTHY ANDREWS SAYLE.
Cornell University Press, 2019, 360 pp.
Why is £¬¡¢ the longest-lasting alliance
o the modern era? Scholars have
typically pointed to the shared demo-
cratic values o its members, which many
believe forge a unique bond. In his
carefully researched history, Sayle
inverts this conventional understanding.
In £¬¡¢’s early decades, government
elites maintained the pact as a buer
against the whims o Äckle democratic
electorates that might too quickly
succumb to Soviet peace overtures and
undermine the balance o power in the
Cold War. Drawing on extensive archival
records, Sayle rehearses in detail the
founding o £¬¡¢ and its early opera-
tions, highlighting the importance o
intergovernmental elites—ministers,
diplomats, commanders—working
outside public view to manage and
protect the alliance’s integrity. N¬¡¢’s
resiliency is rooted in the day-to-day
eorts o this multinational corps o
ocials, dedicated to keeping the
alliance aÁoat. What is £¬¡¢’s future?
Sayle argues that the underlying rationale
for the alliance still holds, although
updated slightly for today: keeping the
Russians out, the Americans in, and the
Europeans together.
Economic, Social, and
EnvironmentalRichard N. Cooper
The Antitrust Paradigm: Restoring a
Competitive Economy
BY JONATHAN B. BAKER. Harvard
University Press, 2019, 368 pp.B
aker, a former director o the
Federal Trade Commission,
believes that the U.S. govern-
ment has gone much too far in relaxing
the enforcement o its century-old
antitrust laws. He places a substantial
measure o blame on the so-called
Chicago school o economics, whose
free-market theories have wielded
substantial inÁuence over agencies
entrusted with the enforcement o
Änancial regulations and over the courts,
particularly the Supreme Court. The
results o lax enforcement include an
increased concentration o market share
in both new and old industries, the
growth o corporate proÄts as a percent-
age o total income, and a decline in
overall productivity. In Baker’s view,
contrary to what others claim, these
outcomes are not justiÄed by any
resulting innovation: indeed, many
acquisitions by large Ärms are intended
to suppress upstarts. The book’s detailed
analysis draws almost entirely on U.S.
laws, institutions, and court decisions,
albeit with a favorable nod to competition
policy in the ¤. But Baker’s arguments
apply to all modern economies, which
must establish and maintain competition
in order to thrive.