Six Faces of Globalization is a very smart book, and not just for people interested in globalization. The authors manage to help readers understand the many faces of globalization by identifying multiple narratives that fuel different political movements and perspectives of the punditocracy. Ultimately, however, this is a book not just about globalization, but also about the power and importance of narrative: how it is constructed and how it can contribute to a far more nuanced and complex understanding of the forces of change. Highly recommended.

At a time when many of us have only one view of the world, so much so that we only read the books and watch the media that support our vision, Roberts and Lamp present us with a real challenge: they lay out convincingly and comprehensively many different narratives of globalization and its political and economic effects. The book thus implicitly challenges the narrative that each of us finds most compelling. Like in a movie by Kurosawa, our view of events depends on our position. This book compels us to change our position, move out of our comfort zone, and see the world differently and more broadly.

Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp have written a brilliant and extremely valuable book. They process an enormous amount of information but also, crucially, narratives and storylines about economic globalization and offer us a new way to sort and evaluate the various claims that circulate. The debates about ‘winners and losers’ explored in Six Faces of Globalization will be with us for years and will be the stuff of headlines for the foreseeable future.

As in the proverbial story of five blind men trying to make sense of an elephant, globalization presents itself in different forms to its proponents and opponents. This immensely useful book clarifies the debates around globalization by developing six narratives rooted in contending values and perceptions of reality. It helps us not only understand the best version of other sides’ narratives, but also move beyond our own conceptual straitjackets.

Six Faces of Globalization is not one more big-think, grand-vision book on the world’s problems and how to solve them. Instead, it is an indispensable guide to how and why many people have abandoned the old, time-tested ways of thinking about politics and the economy. This is the book the world needs to read now. It deserves a spot on every shelf of books about globalization.

Roberts and Lamp give their readers a useful framing to understand today’s—and tomorrow’s—fights about the world economy.

Policymakers and business leaders will appreciate this levelheaded and wide-ranging look at a hot-button issue.

Roberts and Lamp set out to disrupt our intellectual inertia, first by mapping out the six major Western narratives of globalization, then exploring how those narratives drive policies, for better or worse.

This book is highly informative and will certainly appeal to a wide audience interested in identifying the main themes driving the US attitude towards free trade and confrontation with China.