Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy

Globalization is not a new phenomenon; nor is it irreversible. In Globalization and History, Kevin O'Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson present a coherent picture of trade, migration, and international capital flows in the Atlantic economy in the century prior to 1914 - the first great globalization boom. The book’s originality lies in its application of the tools of open-economy economics to this critical historical period - differentiating it from most previous work, which has been based on closed-economy or single-sector models. The authors also keep a close eye on globalization debates of the 1990s, using history to inform the present and vice versa. The book brings together research conducted by the authors over the past decade - work that has profoundly influenced how economic history is now written and that has found audiences in economics and history, as well as in the popular press.