Distorted images of American regulatory ideas and practices frame foreign responses to these practices as well as foreign views of the economic policies of the United States. U.S. power both embeds and contributes to these distorted images. This article highlights the evolution of these distortions and the ways in which business history has intertwined with legal and political history throughout the evolution. It focuses on a specific area of regulation—antitrust or competition law—in order to ground the more general discussion. The article provides insights into the relationship between cognitive distance and power and into its pernicious effects on transnational discussions and decisions involving competition law.

What is the relationship between the corporation and American democracy? This provocative and timely question informs the ten essays that Naomi R. Lamoreaux and William J. Novak have assembled in a tightly edited volume that has attracted a good deal of attention from specialists in the history of U.S. public policy. In an age in which the political influence of big business has once again thrust itself onto the political agenda, this collection should also prove to be of great interest to the many historians, legal scholars, and jurists who are trying to understand the long and complex relationship between business, law, and the state.