Tariffs Got You Down? Try the 1930s Playbook: Adrian Wooldridge

Now that Donald Trump has rendered irrelevant the iconic books that guided corporate thinking in recent decades — who still believes that the world is flat? — businesspeople are desperately casting about for guidance. In a recent column, I argued that US managers have much to learn from emerging markets. Today, I want to add that managers everywhere have much to learn from the interwar years.

The interwar period — marked by the turmoil of the 1920s and the depression of the 1930s — was the last great period of deglobalization. The century between the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the ...