Book of the week: The End of the Free Market by Ian Bremmer

(Portfolio, $27)

Ian Bremmer’s new book is a “sobering examination” of the sudden rise of a new breed of government-directed capitalism, said Publishers Weekly. After first presenting a “whirlwind history” of market economies, Bremmer introduces readers to this new form—state capitalism—in which governments of countries like Russia, China, and Dubai aggressively “exert their influence over markets and big business.”

Bremmer’s book is “excellent, if grossly mislabeled,” said Thomas P.M. Barnett in World Politics Review. While the financial crisis has “birthed a slew of books proclaiming the superiority of state capitalism,” The End of the Free Market is actually an urgent argument for Western countries to hold fast to their free-market mind-set. The emergence of state capitalism will pose some near-term threats to the U.S. economy, but in the end, economies driven by “efficiency and innovation” should have the upper hand on those controlled by “power-fixated politicos.”

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