I would agree that this is a very good book in terms of presenting what happened in the 19th century Atlantic economy. I do have one critical observation. The authors blame the collapse of globalization on the lobbying of particular industries; thus setting up the argument that general gains from trade were lost to special interests. This is in accord with their belief that globalization is a good thing. As an economist working on these issues for many years, with experience in government as well as academics and the private sector, I have to disagree. Clearly, governments need to rally constituents to support policies. Yet, from our own Alexander Hamilton to Germany's Otto von Bismarck, and a host of others, states had a strategic vision of what was in the national interest for which they sought support. This is the origin of the "iron and wheat" alliances that O'Rourke and Williamson credit with undoing "free trade" on the continent. This was a strategy of national economic development and strategic independence under which the major powers were able to successfully increase their economic growth rates. For evidence of this I would recommend Paul Bairoch's book Economics and World History (Univ. of Chicago, 1993). As the great economic thinker Joseph Schumpeter observed "the consistent support given by the American people to protectionist policies...is accounted for not by any love for or domination by big business, but by a fervant wish to build and keep a world of their own and to be rid of all the vicissitudes of the rest of the world." This is true of most people, most places---which is why the current fad of globalization will not last either.