Trade, Regulation and Empire State-building in Britain: The Board of Trade’s Role in Building the British...

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Martha Prevezer Perri 6

Trade, Regulation and Empire State-building in Britain

The Board of Trade’s Role in Building the British Regulatory State

Martha Prevezer, Perri 6, Ed Legon

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English

Palgrave Macmillan
11 October 2025

Political science & theory; Public administration; Political economy; Economic history; Civil service & public sector

Series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History

This book explores the impact of the Board of Trade upon the British state from the early seventeenth century to the early twentieth century. The study argues that for too long historians have overlooked the Board, yet it was a critical force in shaping the British state and in developing its capacity both for economic regulation and for economic development. Focusing on the slave trade and on the textiles, shipping, and infrastructural industries, the authors examine the Board of Trade’s role in shaping, promoting, and protecting these industries and thereby in defining the British state’s economic interests.

The book adds the notion of an imperial-corporate state to widely used concepts of fiscal-military and mercantilist state-building. Challenging the adequacy of the many theories which emphasise taxation and currency in state-building, this study stresses the importance of micro-economic interventions. It unpacks the distinctive character of the British state’s system of micro-economic governance by tracing one central department’s evolution and its relations with other departments, British businesses and infrastructure, and with the governance structures operating between state, company-states, colonies, and domestic business. Three sub-periods of the Board of Trade’s history are distinguished, each marked by a distinctive relationship with the domestic and imperial economies and by characteristic approaches to regulatory oversight.

The book will be of interest to academics and students in business, economic, and political history, and all those interested in the structure of the British state, its legacies of running empires, its relationship with industrial policies and industrialisation, and how it developed its regulatory shape.

By: Martha Prevezer, Perri 6, Ed Legon
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan
Country of Publication: Switzerland
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 148mm,
ISBN: 9783031957376
ISBN 10: 3031957377
Series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History
Pages: 295
Publication Date: 11 October 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Theorising Empire State-building.- Chapter 3: Commissions, Committees, and Councils of Trade, 1622-1696.- Chapter 4: The Board of Trade and Empire State-building in Eighteenth-century Britain, 1696-1815.- Chapter 5: The Board of Trade, Regulation, and Business in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914.

Martha Prevezer is Professor of Governance and Economic History at Queen Mary University of London, UK. Perri 6 is Professor Emeritus in Public Management, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK, and Visiting Professor, Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation, London School of Economics and Political Science. Ed Legon is Senior Lecturer in Heritage Management and Business History at Queen Mary University of London, UK.