Book of the week: Peddling Protectionism by Douglas A. Irwin

(Princeton, $25)

Before the income tax replaced it as the “workhorse” of the U.S. Treasury, the tariff was “what all the shouting was about,” said James Grant in The Wall Street Journal. In this “vivid” new history, Douglas Irwin deftly details the causes and effects of the controversial Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, an anti-import measure sometimes blamed for causing the Great Depression. Though Irwin concludes that the tariff was too small to trigger such large-scale economic contraction, he finds much wreckage caused by the legislation, which began life as an attempt by Republicans to win farmers’ votes. Indeed, his book tells “a timeless story: what happens when cocksure politicians fall into the grip of a really bad economic idea,” said Christopher Caldwell in the Financial Times. It demonstrates that when politicians feel under pressure to “do something,” the “lack of a practical solution is seldom a barrier to mischief.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up