The history of nations is a history of haves and have-nots, and as we approach the millennium, the gap between rich and poor countries is widening. In this engrossing and important new work, eminent historian David Landes explores the complex, fascinating and often startling causes of the wealth and poverty of nations. The answers are found not only in the large forces at work in economies: geography, religion, the broad swings of politics, but also in the small surprising details. In Europe, the invention of spectacles doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, and played a prominent role in the creation of articulated machines, and in China, the failure to adopt the clock fundamentally hindered economic development. The relief of poverty is vital to the survival of us all. As David Landes brilliantly shows, the key to future success lies in understanding the lessons the past has to teach us - lessons uniquely imparted in this groundbreaking and vital book which exemplifies narrative history at its best.

International Political Economy is a thriving interdisciplinary area of study and research based on the combined insights of international economics and international relations theory. It has become one of the fastest growing fields of study in the social sciences, and this new title in the Routledge series, Critical Concepts in Political Science, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subjectâe(tm)s already vast literature and the continuing expansion of research output. Edited by Benjamin J. Cohen, a prominent scholar in the field, it is a four-volume collection of classic and key contemporary contributions to the political economy of global economics. The first of the four volumes concentrates on theory, encompassing the full range of conceptual and analytical perspectives that characterize this diverse field of study. The second and third volumes address core structural elements of the world economy while a variety of contemporary policy challenges is taken up in the fourth volume, including problems of economic development, security and conflict, and the environment. With a comprehensive introduction newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, International Political Economy is an essential work of reference. Researchers, teachers, and students will value the collection as a vital one-stop scholarly and pedagogic resource.

"Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone profound changes--economic cycles that veer from boom to bust--from which it has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason's Postcapitalism argues that we are on the brink of a change so big and so profound that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system within which entire societies function, will mutate into something wholly new. At the heart of this change is information technology, a revolution that is driven by capitalism but, with its tendency to push the value of much of what we make toward zero, has the potential to destroy an economy based on markets, wages, and private ownership. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Vast numbers of people are changing how they behave and live, in ways contrary to the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism. And as the terrain changes, new paths open. In this bold and prophetic book, Mason shows how, from the ashes of the crisis, we have the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable economy. Although the dangers ahead are profound, he argues that there is cause for hope. This is the first time in human history in which, equipped with an understanding of what is happening around us, we can predict and shape the future"--

"Meltdown is the gripping account of the financial collapse that destroyed the West's investment banks, brought the global economy to its knees, and undermined three decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. Covering the development of the crisis from the economic front line, BBC Newsnight journalist Paul Mason explores the roots of the US and UK's financial hubris, documenting the real-world causes and consequences from the Ford factory, to Wall Street, to the City of London. In this fully updated new edition, he recounts how the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis, and explores its impact on capitalist ideology and politics in our new age of austerity."--P. [4] of cover.

Aid for trade is a fixture in the development landscape, accounting for approximately 25 per cent of total ODA, and is being positioned as a building block in the future development agenda beyond the 2015 expiry of the Millennium Development Goals. In The Right to Trade , Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton argue that aid for trade has not delivered on its initial promise. To create a genuinely pro-development trade liberalisation agenda, the authors propose that a right to trade and a right to development be enshrined within the WTOs dispute settlement system; and that aid for trade funds be consolidated into a coherent and predictable framework, where dedicated funds are committed by rich countries to a Global Trade Facility and dispersed through a transparent and competitive process. Together these proposals would help ensure that international trade works for developing countries and will help preserve a development-friendly multilateral trading system.