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

by Frank Trentmann

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

ISBN13: 9780199209200
ISBN10: 0199209200
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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.

Review:

"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."--Professor John Brewer, California Insitute of Technology

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).

Table of Contents

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


Product Details

ISBN:
9780199209200
Subtitle:
Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Society in Modern Britain
Author:
Trentmann, Frank
Publisher:
Oxford University Press, USA
Subject:
Europe - Great Britain - General
Subject:
Economic History
Subject:
Great britain
Subject:
Free trade
Subject:
History
Subject:
International - General
Copyright:
Publication Date:
April 2008
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
400
Dimensions:
0.100 x 0.100 x 0.100 in 0.006 oz
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