US Senator Klobuchar To Write An Antitrust Book

Alfred A. Knopf announced on Monday, January 11, that Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and former presidential candidate, will write about monopolies and her recommendations for how they should be challenged in a book slated for release in April, reported The New York Times.

The book, “Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power From the Gilded Age to the Digital Age,” is a mix of history, law, personal anecdotes, and politics, encompassing such companies as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, Amazon, and pharmaceutical corporations. It is also a blueprint for how Congress and the incoming Biden administration might adjust the United States’ approach to their regulation.

“Corporate consolidation, monopoly power, dark money, and rising levels of income inequality are problems that require a newly invigorated pro-competition agenda,” Ms. Klobuchar said in a statement. “My book traces the history of America’s antitrust movement, explaining why it mattered when the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed by Congress in 1890 and why it matters even more today. It shows how new laws and more effective enforcement are essential to protecting American consumers and free enterprise.”

Ms. Klobuchar, a former prosecutor, sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and is the ranking member on its antitrust subcommittee. Her upcoming book sprang from a conversation about three years ago with Victoria Wilson, a vice president and senior editor at Knopf. At that time, Ms. Klobuchar had already written a memoir, “The Senator Next Door,” and during their talk, Ms. Wilson encouraged her to write a different kind of book.