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.

"After this book, no study of Victorian liberalism can be conducted in quite the same way."--Contemporary History

"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

"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."--John Brewer, California Institute of Technology

"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...that deserves a wide readership."--Peter Clarke, Times Literary Supplement

"Brilliant"--Sunday Telegraph

"Fascinating"--Il Riformista

"Absorbing"--History Today

"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

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).

Introduction: Free Trade and Political Culture

Part One: Building a Free Trade Nation

Prologue

1. Free Trade Stories

2. Bread and Circuses

3. Uneasy Globalizers

Part Two: Unravelling

4. Consumers Divided

5. Visible Hands

6. Losing Interest

7. Final Days

Epilogue

Notes

Guide to Further Reading

Index