According to pundits and politicians, major wars between the great powers are impossible when nations are linked by the global economy. James Macdonald reminds us that the argument was heard before—in the years before the world collapsed into the carnage of World War I. In When Globalization Fails, the British investment banker-author summarizes political economics from the past two centuries and reaches a plausible conclusion: The China of 2015 behaves much like the Germany of 1914 as a nation aggrieved, arriving late to claim the spoils of power and engaged in a costly arms race with a world-spanning rival—for Germany it was Great Britain but for China, the U.S. Macdonald’s thoughtful, extended essay is a reminder that the lesson of history is often that history’s lessons are forgotten.
