False Economy - Alan Beattie [156]
Acknowledgments
A book, especially a first book, doesn't come into existence without a lot of help.
An assortment of people read sections at various stages and gave me helpful comments and encouragement: Richard Baldwin, Ha-Joon Chang, Simeon Djankov, Damon Green, Ed Luce, Kirsty McNeill, Todd Moss, Moises Nairn, Marcus Noland, Adam Posen, Pietra Rivoli, Dani Rodrik, and Razeen Sally. Sathnam Sanghera gave me advice and guidance at the critical early stages, and sagely pointed out that if he could write a book, so could I.
My editors, Mary Mount and Geoff Kloske, took a big chance on me in the first place and have displayed remarkable patience and persistence, especially during the ongoing drama of the Great Title Hunt. As an agent, Jonny Geller has proved to be absolutely everything he was cracked up to be.
The Financial Times has been my employer for a decade, and I am grateful for the time and space it has given me to pursue my obsessions. Special thanks, particularly for help and inspiration during my first and rather nervous months, are due to Chris Adams, Richard Adams, Lionel Barber, Robert Chote, Stephen Fidler, and Martin Wolf.
For support and help in recent years, I owe thanks to an indispensable group of friends: it would be invidious to single any out, but they know who they are. For as long as I can remember, my closest supporter of all has been my brother, John, a judicious guide and a resolute ally. And finally, my debt of longest standing is to the people to whom this book is dedicated, who brought me into being, who taught me to read and then read the first things I ever wrote, who have been reading me ever since, and who have always given me boundless and unconditional love: my parents.
Selected Bibliography and Notes
Throughout the book I have made use of a number of excellent histories of economics and trade, among them the following:
William Bernstein, A Splendid Exchange. Grove/Atlantic, 2008. A huge breadth of color and detail.
Greg Clark, A Farewell to Alms. Princeton University Press, 2008. A brilliant and thought-provoking book; its conclusions are discussed in the final chapter.
Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O'Rourke, Power and Plenty. Princeton University Press, 2008. Particularly interesting on how the Mongols were good for trade.
David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. W. W. Norton, 1998. Includes a good account of how Argentina went wrong.
Figures on gross domestic product and other economic data are drawn generally from invaluable work by Angus Maddison, collected in The World Economy, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2006, and Contours of the World Economy, Oxford University Press, 2007.
Preface
The opening anecdote on Franklin Delano Roosevelt is from Arthur A. Sloane, Humor in the White House, McFarland, 2001.
1. Making Choices
The brilliant observation about debtors and creditors going in opposite directions after the First World War is from Jeffry Frieden, Global Capitalism, W W. Norton, 2006, with valuable insights also from Albert Fishlow, "Lessons from the Past: Capital Markets During the 19th Century and the Interwar Period," International Organization 39, no. 3 (1985); and Stanley Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, "Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Paths of Growth Among New World Economies," National Bureau of Economic Research Historical Working Paper 66, 1994.
I relied on various histories of Argentina, including Carlos Waisman, Reversal of Development in Argentina, Princeton University Press, 1987; Leslie Bethell, ed., Argentina Since Independence, Cambridge University Press, 1993; Roy Hora, The Landowners of the Argentine Pampas, Oxford University Press, 2001; Roberto Aizcorbe's robust polemic Argentina : The Peronist