Download or read book Misadventures of the Most Favored Nations written by Paul Blustein and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the pivotal institution of global capitalism, the World Trade Organization is both revered and reviled. In this book, journalist Paul Blustein tells the compelling story of how an organization dedicated to resolving trade disputes and promoting economic growth slid into dysfunctionality - which poses a new and grave menace to globalization itself. In more than seven years of global talks the WTO has struggled and failed to resolve contentious differences between rich and developing nations. Now, with a worldwide recession underway, the WTO's failure is deepening the peril of a surge in protectionism - a sign the world may not be so fat after all. Misadventures of the Most Favored Nations recounts, in vivid detail, how the high-stakes negotiations went awry. At risk, Blustein argues, is the fate of the system that for six decades has opened the global economy and kept it from splintering. Blustein is a brilliant investigator of complex international organizations; his previous books on the International Monetary Fund have drawn wide acclaim for being vividly reported and highly readable. Now he shines his journalistic spotlight inside another enormously powerful international institution that is a source of great perplexity even, sometimes, to those who work for it. Based on interviews with more than 150 officials of the WTO and its member nations, many of whom shared notes of confidential meetings, Blustein's tale of high-decibel confrontations, late-night scrambling, and tearful despondency presents an alarm call to anyone who believes in the power of globalization to raise living standards around the world.