In the theater of history, irony often plays a leading role. How did the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known — according to the World Bank lifting 1.5 billion people out of crushing poverty — become America’s most dangerous political wager?

In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Journalist David J. Lynch — author of The World’s Worst Bet: How the Globalization Gamble Went Wrong (And What Would Make It Right.) He witnessed first-hand globalization’s arc from golden dawn to political twilight and the impact on global trade today.

He asks why the smartest people in Washington were so spectacularly right about the economics and so catastrophically wrong about the politics.

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