About Homecoming
“Foroohar offers fascinating glimpses into the future, describing, among other innovations, farms grown in shipping containers, sustainable homes fashioned by 3D printers, and affordable education programs that provide career paths for students and needed skill sets for regional businesses. Though the obstacles to untangling global interdependencies on oil, grain, and other resources are somewhat underdeveloped, Foroohar lucidly explains complex financial and political matters and draws sharp profiles of imaginative labor organizers, business leaders, and policymakers. This astute survey provides a welcome measure of hope.”
– Publishers Weekly
A sweeping case that a new age of economic localization will re-moor place and prosperity, putting to an end to the last half century of globalization—by one of the preeminent journalists writing today.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Thomas Friedman declared globalization the new economic order in The World Is Flat. But the reign of globalization as we’ve known it is over, argues Financial Times columnist and CNN analyst Rana Foroohar, and the rise of local, regional, and home-grown business is now at hand.
From bare supermarket shelves to the shortage of PPE supplies, the pandemic brought the fragility of global trade and supply chains into stark relief. The tragic war in Ukraine and the political and economic chaos that followed further underlined the fragilities of globalization. The world, it turns out, isn’t flat – in fact, it’s quite bumpy.
The fragmentation has been coming for decades. Our neoliberal economic philosophy of prioritizing efficiency over resilience and profits over local prosperity has produced massive inequality, perilous economic insecurity, and distrust in the institutions of today. This philosophy, which underpinned the last half century of globalization, has run its course.
Now, the pendulum of history is swinging back, powered by place-based economics and a wave of technological innovations making it possible to keep operations, investment and wealth closer to home, wherever it may be. In Homecoming, Foroohar explores both the challenges and the possibilities of this new era, and how it can usher in a more equitable and prosperous future.
Advance praise for Homecoming
The way we eat impacts everything in our world, and “Homecoming” is a thorough examination of not just the dire consequences but also the many hopeful possibilities contained in that simple truth.
— Alice Waters, New York Times bestselling author of Coming to My Senses
In Homecoming, veteran journalist Rana Foroohar wants us looking closer to home for the resilience, fairness, and prosperity that can heal the wounds inflicted by a system no longer fit for purpose. This invaluable book is as bold in its ambitions as it is readable, and its conclusions will be debated for years to come.
— Ian Bremmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Crisis
Rana Foroohar understands what went wrong with America and how to make it right. Her pioneering books on big tech and big money proved that Rana is one of the leading economic voices in these troubled times, and in “Homecoming” she weaves it all together to show how to build a safer, cleaner, and more peaceful world. A visionary blueprint for a future that works for all of us.
— Barry Lynn, Open Market Institute
In this deeply reported book, Foroohar offers a mix of lively on-the-ground tales and stimulating macroanalysis to explain how globalization and localization are changing business, finance, and our wider society. . . . A must-read.
— Gillian Tett, New York Times bestselling author of Anthro-Vision
Foroohar has consistently been right on globalization. Homecoming explains how local manufacturing is becoming a solution for many communities around the world. The detailed reporting and interviews make for eye-opening and gripping reading.
— Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize laureate in economics
By asking the fundamental questions of what matters and who matters, this book comes with some conditioned optimism about the future: Global cooperation is possible (and needed), but can yield positive social outcomes only if built on sound economic thinking that values community, sustainability, and equity. The road to this new form of capitalism is paved with books like Homecoming.”
— Mariana Mazzucato, author of Mission Economy
In this fascinating book, Rana Foroohar argues that the retreat from hyperglobalization is a fact—and a welcome one at that. Homecoming will change how you think of the world to come.
— Dani Rodrik, author of The Globalization Paradox