A history of corporate interactions with government and customers: in particular, the rise and fall of idea of anti-monopoly and the different philosophies that underpin regulators in the US versus Europe. The feeling is one of … well, if not hopelessness, than of an inadequacy of democratic governance in the face of enormous corporate spending on lobbying and political influence to protect corporate greed and profit.

It’s perhaps unfortunate that I read this at the moment when the corporations identified as the major threats – the tech giants – were busily shedding staff and possibly collapsing to a shadow of their former (and intended future) selves. It demonstrates that what sometimes feels like inevitable and inexorable triumph is often just a phase: that the largest, most successful, corporations are often brought low sooner and more unexpectedly than anyone could have conceived in the times of their pomp.

3/5. Finished Sunday 26 February, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)