Failure to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy (A Council on Foreign Relations Book)

*Updated edition with a new foreword on the Trump administration's trade policy*

The vast benefits promised by the supporters of globalization, and by their own government, have never materialized for many Americans. In Failure to Adjust Edward Alden provides a compelling history of the last four decades of US economic and trade policies that have left too many Americans unable to adapt to or compete in the current global marketplace. He tells the story of what went wrong and how to correct the course. Originally published on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, Alden’s book captured the zeitgeist that would propel Donald J. Trump to the presidency. In a new introduction to the paperback edition, Alden addresses the economic challenges now facing the Trump administration, and warns that economic disruption will continue to be among the most pressing issues facing the United States. If the failure to adjust continues, Alden predicts, the political disruptions of the future will be larger still.

• A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
• The Great Tradeoff: Confronting Moral Conflicts in the Era of Globalization
• Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade
• The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade. New Preface and Epilogue with Updates on Economic Issues and Main Characters
• Seeds of Wealth: Five Plants That Made Men Rich
• People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent
• The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization
• Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital
• The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization
• The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State