In Free People, Free Markets, George Melloan examines how The Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages became the leading forum for the discussion of political and economic policies in the United States. With print editions in Europe and Asia, translated supplements in many foreign newspapers, and online products available globally, the Journal established an international footprint and engaged in worldwide debates. Going back to the original editorials of Charles Dow and his beliefs in political and economic freedom, Melloan explains how the Journal attained such domestic and global prominence and influence.

George Melloan was a writer and editor at The Wall Street Journal for 54 years.  He joined the paper as a reporter in Chicago, moved to Detroit, and then successively managed the Cleveland and Atlanta news bureaus.  He became a page-one editor in New York in 1962 and in 1966 went to London as a foreign correspondent covering Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.  He covered the Six-Day War in Israel in 1967 and the Biafran War in Nigeria in 1968.  In 1970 he joined the editorial page and in 1973 became deputy to Robert L. Bartley, editorial page editor and later editor of the Journal.  In 1990, he moved to Brussels to take charge of overseas editorial pages, starting an op-ed foreign affairs column, “Global View.”  He retired in 2006 but still writes occasionally for the Journal opinion pages.  In 2009, he authored The Great Money Binge: Spending our Way to Socialism about the causes of the 2008 market crash.