ABSTRACT

Drawing on recent debates in critical International Political Economy, this book mobilizes the idea that the economy does not exist separately from society and politics to develop a detailed intellectual history of how the economy came to be seen as an independent domain. 

In contrast to typical approaches to writing the history of economic thought, which assume the reality of the economy, the author describes the forms of intellectual argument that made it possible to conceive of the national and international economies as objects of intellectual inquiry. At the centre of this process was the analytical separation of power and wealth. Walter thus offers a broad historical perspective on the emergence of current IPE theory, while linking the field with contextualist intellectual history.

This important and innovative volume will be of strong interest to students and scholars of International Political Economy, International Relations, Economics, History and Political Theory.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

part |2 pages

Part I Context

chapter 1|9 pages

Counsellors to government

part |2 pages

Part II Counsel on trade

chapter 3|15 pages

The state’s strength and wealth

chapter 4|15 pages

Strength, wealth, and state rivalry

part |2 pages

Part III Political economy

chapter 5|11 pages

Smith and the economy

chapter 6|13 pages

Smith and the international economy

chapter 7|13 pages

Ricardo and the national economy

chapter 8|8 pages

Ricardo and the international economy

chapter 9|7 pages

Conclusion