A passionate and provocative critique of the policies that helped reshape the global balance of power.
Prisse delivers a forceful, controversial warning about China’s rise and the West’s role in enabling it. Looking back to China’s entry into the global trading system in 2001, he argues that Western leaders, economists, and trade institutions misunderstood the consequences of integrating a low-cost authoritarian power into the world economy. “We entered into free trade with China on totally false assumptions,” he declares. Elsewhere, he insists that “the real danger we face is not military. The present rivalry for world power is economic.”
Part economic critique, part geopolitical manifesto, the book ranges from trade deficits and manufacturing decline to Taiwan, Europe’s weakness, and what the author sees as a persistent failure of elite thinking. Prisse’s tone is unapologetically combative, taking aim at presidents, professors, journalists, and international organizations alike. Readers who disagree with his conclusions may still find his arguments provocative, particularly his contention that China’s growing influence was not inevitable but financed, in large part, by Western policy choices.
A polemical challenge to globalization-era assumptions, written with urgency and conviction.
***
Pub date March 25 2026
ISBN 979-8253362686
Print length 130 pages
Price $18.99 (USD) Paperback, $4.11 Kindle edition
