Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Society in Modern Britain - Softcover

Trentmann, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199567328 ISBN 13: 9780199567324

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 2009

Synopsis

One of Britain's defining contributions to the modern world, Free Trade united civil society and commerce and gave birth to consumer power. In this book, Frank Trentmann shows how the doctrine of Free Trade contributed to the growth of a democratic culture in Britain-and how it fell apart. Far from the cold economic doctrine of today, in an earlier battle over globalization Free Trade was a passionately held ideal, central to public life and national identity. Free Trade inspired popular entertainment and advertising, in seaside resorts, shows, and shopping streets. It mobilized an alliance of elites and the people, businessmen and working-class women, imperialists and internationalists. Free Trade Nation follows the creation of this culture in nineteenth-century Britain, and its subsequent unraveling in the First World War and the depression of the 1930s, when consumers and internationalists, labor and business now attacked it for sacrificing international stability and domestic welfare at the temple of cheapness. These successful attacks marked the end of a defining chapter in history. The popular culture of Free Trade was never to return. For anyone interested in the current problem of globalization, this book offers a vivid and thought-provoking perspective on the success and failure of Free Trade. For champions of trade liberalization, it is a reminder that culture, ethics and popular communication matter just as much as sound economics. Believers in Fair Trade, by contrast, will be surprised to learn that in the past it was Free Trade, not Fair Trade, that was seen to stand for values such as democracy, justice, and peace.

About this title

Review:

Trentmann has produced a valuable guide to free trade. (Journal of Liberal History)

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)

brilliant (Sunday Telegraph)

This is terrific history that will inspire economists to remember their subject really can arouse passion. (Evan Davis, BBC Economics Editor)

...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)

a landmark in economic history and the history of ideas (La Vie des Idées)

fascinating (Il Riformista)

...paints a vivid picture of the ideological controversy over Free Trade that remains relevant to this day. (Luxemburger Wort)

About the Author:

Frank Trentmann is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, and Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence. He has publised widely on modern economic history, most recently Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Transnationalism (2007, with Kevin Grant and Philippa Levine) and Consuming Cultures, Global Perspectives (2006, with John Brewer)

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0199567328
• ISBN 13: 9780199567324
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 450