Free Trade Nation

Trentmann has not only added a great deal to our knowledge through painstaking research but has written about it with verve and energy and produced a most readable volume...[a] fine book. Peter J. Cain EH.NET Here we have 'a human history of Free Trade' that is at once a delight to read and a cause of profound intellectual stimulation. It graphically brings alive - with splendid colour reproductions of propaganda posters too - the popular passions and prejudices of a world that suddenly ended during the First World War...This is a book imbued with fine scholarship, but one that deserves a wide readership Peter Clarke, Times Literary Supplement [An] absorbing book History Today ...an inspired history...Trentmann's book unfolds a dramatic story...gripping Neue Zuercher Zeitung Thoughtful and well-researched. Christopher Harvie, The Independent [A] lucid history of free trade in Britain David Connett, Sunday Express This is terrific history that will inspire economists to remember their subject really can arouse passion. Evan Davis, BBC Economics Editor brilliant Sunday Telegraph [A] fascinating work Il Riformista ..paints a vivid picture of the ideological controversy over Free Trade that remains relevant to this day. Luxemburger Wort offers a fresh look at a chapter in British and world history, while at the same time providing a historical perspective on today's debate about globalisation, challenging the ways we have come to think about trade, justice and democracy. Society Now Free Trade Nation is history at its best: far-reaching and authoritative, its story of the rise and fall of free trade as a widely-held belief marked by justice, fairness, and peace provocatively refashions the history of early-twentieth-century Britain, reminds us of an age when popular politics exerted real power, and forces us to rethink our contemporary views of consumers, markets and morality. Professor John Brewer, California Institute of Technology a landmark in economic history and the history of ideas...offers a new perspective on the contemporary process of globalization...Free Trade Nation describes with sensitivity and erudition the ideological milieu that gave birth to a new liberalism sensitive to the dangers of unbridled capitalism gone mad, such as John A. Hobson and John M. Keynes...Globalization, Trentmann shows us, is not just the fruit of economic interaction. It is first and foremost the product of debate over ideas within civil society and politics. La Vie des Idees Frank Trentmann...has not only added a great deal to our knowledge through painstaking research but has written about it with verve and energy and produced a most readable volume. Reviews in Economic and Business History