Thomas Sowell and Mark Skousen have written some good non-technical books on the basics applied to some cases of interest. 
 
For 'big idea' books, I like 
Smith, Ricardo, Bastiat, Hayek, and above all von Mises. Haven't read Keynes. 
 
The Way the World Works by Jude Wanniski is an interesting introduction to supply-side theory and the Laffer curve. Although I sympathize with his desire for an apolitical measure of monetary value, I'm not sure gold will do it anymore. 
 
Veblen's Theory of the Liesure Class has something of the truth in it, but takes a lot of words to say, in effect, "People like to show off their wealth by buying things that are useless and wasteful." 
 
Specifically on free-trade and globalization, Martin Wolf's Why Globalization Works is quite good.

The case given by Razib is quite accurate. I don't believe it is even a case of Pareto optimality, as there is no guarantee that the losing workers are compensated in any way. All CA says is that each *country* will be better off and that the whole world will be net better off. Individuals in either country may well be worse off. 
 
I agree with the commentators here that this is what has happened to the low-wage workers in the US.  
 
So, how bad is that? 
 
Well, it sucks if you happen to be a low-wage US worker. On the other hand it is fantastic if you're a Chinese or Indian programmer or a US financial services CEO, pretty good if you're an Indian foundry worker or Chinese factory worker, pretty darn good if you're middle-income-or-up US consumer. 
 
Overall, the fact that the *whole world* is going to benefit from the economic and scientific activity of billions of people in Asia and millions in Latin America seems well worth a temporary slowing of growth in wages in the most comfortable nations in the world.

I would view with some caution the idea that economic history is all that clean. Although it is exciting to see a compelling analytical explanation for some historical event, a little digging usually shows conflicting explanations. What was the reason for the US economic recovery under Kennedy? The Keynesians credit it to 'pump-priming' from the '62 - 63 deficit. Freidman pointed out that the fed's interest rates resulted in a significant increase of the money supply. And, of course, the supply-siders claim it as a recent example of the power of lowering marginal tax rates... So was fiscal, monetary , or taxation policy change the answer?  
 
I'm personally inclined to think it's another case of the blind men and the elephant - all are partly in the right (but all are in the wrong).