Blockade: The Science and Ethics of Trade
New Boudreaux/Caplan/Weinersmith collaboration coming in Fall 2027
Happy New Year from Lima, Peru! While I’m on the road, let me tell you about my latest big project.
I’ve now written two non-fiction graphic novels. Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, illustrated by Zach Weinersmith, was a New York Times Bestseller. The second, Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation, illustrated by Ady Branzei, was nominated for the Hayek Prize, and helped me land a high-profile companion essay in the New York Times. While I was finishing Unbeatable, I kept pondering other economic issues in need of graphic novelization. When Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs cost humanity trillions of dollars (and me hundreds of thousands of dollars) last April, I suddenly realized which issue needed me most: protection or free trade?
As soon as I had this idea, I also realized that I needed to team up with a top expert on the issue. I immediately thought of my colleague, friend, and arguably the world’s leading expositor of free trade, Don Boudreaux. Truly, his habitual letters to the editor have taught me more about the nature of trade deficits and modern American economic history than all my coursework at Princeton. And to my delight, Don accepted my offer almost instantly.
At this point, I began hunting for an artist. I started with the great Zach Weinersmith, and he too jumped on board almost instantly. Since the Cato Institute had already graciously offered to run a whole series of my non-fiction graphic novels, the project was ready to start moving forward at my version of Warp Speed.
Upshot: You can expect to have Blockade: The Science and Ethics of Trade in your hands by Fall of 2027. Sorry it won’t be sooner, but as always, I’m taking the time to craft what I hope to be a timeless work of supreme erudition and beauty.
Here’s the tentative Table of Contents. Please share non-obvious topics you’d like the book to cover in the comments. And if there’s any Weinersmith imagery you’re dying to see, please share your vision.
Blockade: The Science and Ethics of Trade
Chapter 1: I’ll Trade You For It
Chapter 2: The Hollowness of Hollowing Out
Chapter 3: A Deficit of Understanding
Chapter 4: The Dream of Strategic Trade
Chapter 5: Pax Commercial
Chapter 6: Progress and Its Discontents
Chapter 7: Visualize Free Trade
I'm glad you're doing this, Bryan.
The one thing that surprised me is your statement that the Trump tariffs are costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars. How do you get that estimate? It seems like an overestimate by at least an order of magnitude.
I hope that it won’t compete with the attention Unbeatable will get with that release timing!
1. Will it cover war (or peace) sanctions? The common example of South Africa as an example of trade restrictions working?
2. I don’t remember if Open Borders or BBB covered objections to using GDP as a measure of economic growth and well-being. This is commonly heard with “We’re a nation, not an economy” slogans.
3. I know you’ll address the decline of manufacturing jobs, but Google Gemini recently brought up an argument that the decline in manufacturing jobs might have caused African American single parenthood rates to climb. I had never heard that before and think that you would have interesting thoughts on that considering your interest in the success sequence.