Economics might study trade, commerce, and financial markets, but the discipline explores human interaction as much as any other subject. The idea of free trade, especially the idea espoused by Richard Cobden, intersected with the millennial pursuit of peace like two halves of the same walnut. Marc William Palen joins the show to explain the legacy of Cobden and others in the global story of free trade and pacifism.

Essential Reading:

Marc William Palen, Pax Economica: Left Wing Visions of a Free Trade World (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Johanna Bockman, Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-Wing Origins of Neoliberalism (2011).

Eric Helleiner, The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History (2021).

Douglas Irwin, Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (1998).

Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018).

Thomas Zeiler, Capitalist Peace: A History of American Free-Trade Internationalism (2022).

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