"In this eye-opening and learned book, Marc-William Palen provides a thrilling example of how differently our ancestors saw the world. Now regarded as a device of inequality and neoliberalism, free trade was once the highest instrument of advocates of international peace and prosperity. As protectionism surges in our world--not least in the policy of the United States, which once made economic nationalism notorious--Palen's point is of far more than historical interest."-- Samuel Moyn, Yale University " Pax Economica is a brilliant study of the radical and progressive history of free trade. In a sweeping narrative, Marc-William Palen masterfully shows how thinkers all over the world believed free trade could promote peace and prosperity on a global level. Through rich archival research and innovative theoretical interpretation, the book offers an important alternative to contemporary thinking about free trade and international relations. Pax Economica is an outstanding book that will transform our understanding of the history of free-trade economics and its influence on international politics."-- Or Rosenboim, author of The Emergence of Globalism: Visions of World Order in Britain and the United States, 1939-1950 "Marc-William Palen provides a novel and refreshing account of the fortunes of the movements for free trade, anti-imperialism, and peace from the 1840s to the present.

In doing so, he draws free traders across the world into his story, relates their fortunes to mercantilist and neomercantilist interests, and finds room for some fascinating and little-known supporters among feminist and Christian pressure groups. This must rank as the most comprehensive study yet of a movement that has fallen on hard times recently but still hopes that its day will come."-- A. G. Hopkins, author of A merican Empire: A Global History "For the last couple of decades, the desire to write a prelude to the present has driven historians to build causal chains linking free trade, liberalism, empire, globalism, and capitalism. Forgotten in the process was a rich and often dissident tradition that called for free trade from the left. As Marc-William Palen shows us in a vivid new book bristling with examples and spoiling for a historiographical fight, these movements--at their best--were consistent opponents of colonialism, slavery, monopoly power, and even patriarchy. His timely and provocative fusion of 'Marx and Manchester' is a political cherry bomb that forces us to rethink our sometimes overly simplistic storylines.

"-- Quinn Slobodian, author of Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy "In Pax Economica , Marc-William Palen performs an important act of historical recovery. Drawing on an impressive body of research, he traces the various iterations of cosmopolitan free-trade arguments advocated by radical liberals, social democrats, and socialists between the 1840s and 1940s. Palen places the question of trade at the heart of debates over internationalism, war, and empire, debates which are as relevant today as at the height of the Victorian age. This is a major contribution to intellectual and political history."-- Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge.