Shannon K. O’Neil is an expert in global trade whose new book, The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter, argues that the emergence of three major economic blocs in North America, Asia and Europe, has been more important to the world economy’s recent development than globalization. Dr. O’Neil is currently a vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she holds the Nelson and David Rockefeller chair for Latin America studies. Besides her career in academia she has also worked on Wall Street as an equity analyst. The following is a lightly edited transcript of a recent interview.
Shannon O'Neil.Illustration by Kate Copeland
Q: Your book argues that globalization is a slightly inaccurate way to describe what's happened to the world economy in recent decades: You see regionalization as much more important. Could you expand on that?
A: The conventional wisdom about globalization just isn't accurate, for two main reasons. The first is that when you look back at