The Retreat of Democracy and Other Itinerant Essays on Globalization, Economics, and India

This accessible and stimulating book on some of the major political and economic issues of our time will delight all readers and astonish anyone who thinks economics is unconnected with literary elegance. An eminent Professor of Economics with extensive research in theoretical economics at Cornell, Kaushik Basu has over the past decade also consolidated his already considerable reputation as a writer who can explain complex issues with disarming ease. This book contains an expanded and reworked selection of his best journalistic writings on politics and economic themes since the late 1990s. The book begins with the author’s widely-cited essays on globalization and democracy. These argue that while economic globalization is occurring at breakneck speed and offers large potential benefits, political globalization has been painfully slow.