Episode 116: Globalisation in Retreat or Renewal? A Historical Perspective with Harold James

In this episode of the Global Economy Podcast, ECIPE’s Chief Economist, Erik van der Marel, sits down with Harold James, Professor at Princeton University and a leading expert on globalisation. Together, they dive into James’s book Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalisation, exploring how major economic shocks — from demand-side crises like the Great Depression and the 2008 financial meltdown to supply-side disruptions like the 1840s food crisis, the 1970s oil shock, and COVID-19 — have repeatedly reshaped the course of globalisation, either slowing it down or propelling it forward.

During their conversation, Erik and Professor James discuss the potential for a renewed wave of globalisation following the current negative supply shock. They trace historical parallels between past technologies — such as steam power and containerisation — and institutions like joint-stock companies that once propelled globalisation forward, and today’s transformative technologies, such as AI, that are likely to do the same. The dialogue also examines US policy, semiconductor bottlenecks, rare earths, the global shift toward services, intellectual property, and the role of education in shaping the future of globalisation.

You can watch a video recording of this conversation here.

You can read a transcript of the chat here.

Order Professor James’s book “Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalisation” here.

Harold James, the Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies at Princeton University, is Professor of History and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, and an associate at the Bendheim Center for Finance. His books include a study of the interwar depression in Germany, The German Slump (1986); an analysis of the changing character of national identity in Germany, A German Identity 1770-1990 (1989); International Monetary Cooperation Since Bretton Woods (1996), and The End of Globalization (2001), which is available in 8 languages. He was also coauthor of a history of Deutsche Bank (1995), which won the Financial Times Global Business Book Award in 1996, and he wrote The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic War Against the Jews (2001). His most recent books include Family Capitalism, Harvard University Press, 2006; The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle, Harvard University Press, 2009; Making the European Monetary Union, Harvard University Press, 2012; The Euro and the Battle of Economic Ideas (with Markus K. Brunnermeier and Jean-Pierre Landau), Princeton University Press, 2016; Making A Modern Central Bank: The Bank of England 1979-2003, Cambridge University Press 2020; The War of Words: A Glossary of Globalization, Yale University Press 2021; Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization, Yale University Press 2023. He is the official historian of the International Monetary Fund. In 2004, he was awarded the Helmut Schmidt Prize for Economic History, and in 2005 the Ludwig Erhard Prize for writing about economics. He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate.