Most of Bernstein’s tome reads like an adventure book, but the final couple of chapters are saved for making the argument for free trade. Bernstein makes a persuasive, if slightly dry, case against protectionism. Having been entertained so wonderfully for nearly 400 pages, I was duty bound to allow the author his soapbox for the final two chapters, but I was introduced to so many tariffs, treaties and theorems, my head spun: Cobden-Chevalier, Fordney-McCumber, Smoot-Hawley, Stolper-Samuelson. After all the swashbuckling, I suddenly found myself in an economics lecture.
Despite this slightly anti-climactic ending, A Splendid Exchange is a magnificent book and a must for anyone who wants to understand how global trade developed. While I don’t wish to reread the final couple of chapters of Bernstein’s book myself, I think the world’s leaders should take the time to do so. As ailing industries and trade unions lobby governments for protection, Bernstein’s book is an important reminder that ‘protectionism is a gun that recoils most forcefully upon the least fortunate’.
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