Recent Books
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enriches American lives and creates
better jobs. He examines six familiar
products—taco salad, automobiles (the
Honda Odyssey incorporates the
highest share o U.S. labor o any car),
bananas (the most consumed fruit by
far), iPhones, college education, and
entertainment (especially the μÏ show
Game of Thrones)—to demonstrate how
foreign trade is a pervasive and invalu-
able part o modern life. He eec-
tively debunks many myths about
trade, including the misguided belie
that bilateral trade de¥cits are harm-
ful. His book is an easy and enjoyable
read, drawing predominately on
American examples but applicable to
many other countries, as well.Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its
Founding Principles—and All of Us
BY RANA FOROOHAR. Currency,
2019, 368 pp.Foroohar, a business journalist and associ-
ate editor at the Financial Times, launches
a trenchant critique o the world’s largest
technology ¥rms, including Google and
its parent company, Alphabet. The book’s
title borrows the original motto o
Google—now belied by its actual behav-
ior, in the author’s view. Foroohar writes
in an easy-to-read journalistic style, citing
many speeches and interviews with
numerous tech titans. She suggests a
variety o ways to rein in the technology
giants, including breaking up the ¥rms
(or at least limiting their growth), making
clear that individuals (and not companies)
own their personal data, and ensuring
that highly pro¥table technology ¥rms
are properly taxed, mainly by closing
egregious loopholes brought about and
preserved by political lobbying.nonetheless, particularly in making
economics readily accessible to nonex-
perts through many stories and examples.
Revolutionizing World Trade: How
Disruptive Technologies Open Opportunities
for All
BY KATI SUOMINEN. Stanford
University Press, 2019, 360 pp.
Suominen examines the opportunities
that new technologies will open up in
world trade, ushering in what she calls
“globalization 4.0” within a decade. This
future is already apparent, in an incipient
form. It involves the digitization o
buying and selling (e-commerce), additive
manufacturing (3D printing), the use o
blockchain technology in various business
practices, and the greater availability o
credit thanks to direct lending by savers
to borrowers. Such changes could enable
small and medium-sized enterprises to
engage in cross-border trade through
e-commerce, in eect becoming mini-
multinationals, a prospect o particular
interest to the author. Suominen ¥nds
many ine¾ciencies in today’s outdated
practices, which she believes can be
overcome through international digital
standards not only for e-commerce but
also for customs processes and for digital
services that transmit data across borders.
Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word: How
Six Everyday Products Make the Case for
Trade
BY FRED P. HOCHBERG. Avid
Reader Press, 2020, 336 pp.
Hochberg, a former president o the
U.S. Export-Import Bank, makes a
vigorous case for foreign trade in both
goods and services, which he claims