Fans pick 100 books like The World That Trade Created

By Kenneth Pomeranz, Steven Topik,

Here are 100 books that The World That Trade Created fans have personally recommended if you like The World That Trade Created. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy

Francine McKenzie Author Of GATT and Global Order in the Postwar Era

From my list on why international trade is all about politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of history at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. I have written about the history of international organizations, international trade, the British Commonwealth, and Canada in the world. Although these topics have taken me in different directions, I have always examined the political currents that run through them. Politics emerge in relation to ideology, policymaking, leadership, norms, values, interests, identity, international relations, and global governance. I have been especially interested in connecting economics and politics. Many scholars write about trade policies, organizations, and negotiations as though they are technical and narrowly economic when they are agents, instruments, and expressions of international politics. 

Francine's book list on why international trade is all about politics

Francine McKenzie Why did Francine love this book?

Irwin’s history of US trade policy from the colonial period to the early 21st century will convince you that you cannot write about domestic and international politics without writing about tariffs and trade.

Because international trade affected people, regions, and sectors of the economy in different ways, trade policies elicited support and opposition. Given the importance of the United States to the global economy, it is crucial to understand how trade policy has been mired in politics.

While Irwin’s study focuses on the United States, there is no reason to think trade is less combustible elsewhere. 

By Douglas A. Irwin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Clashing over Commerce as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in The Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer. Douglas A. Irwin's Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive…


Book cover of Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy

Francine McKenzie Author Of GATT and Global Order in the Postwar Era

From my list on why international trade is all about politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of history at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. I have written about the history of international organizations, international trade, the British Commonwealth, and Canada in the world. Although these topics have taken me in different directions, I have always examined the political currents that run through them. Politics emerge in relation to ideology, policymaking, leadership, norms, values, interests, identity, international relations, and global governance. I have been especially interested in connecting economics and politics. Many scholars write about trade policies, organizations, and negotiations as though they are technical and narrowly economic when they are agents, instruments, and expressions of international politics. 

Francine's book list on why international trade is all about politics

Francine McKenzie Why did Francine love this book?

This book explains why Mexico has been important to the governance of the global economy.

Mexican officials and economists promoted a post-colonial and development conception of the global economy based on equality, inclusion, and redistribution. Thornton writes about the entire architecture of the global economy, of which international trade was an important part.

Her work explains the significance of a politics of resistance that shaped and was suppressed by the global economic order. She notes that scholarship that excludes or minimizes global South countries perpetuates their marginalization.

By Christy Thornton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Revolution in Development as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of The Chronicle of Higher Education's Best Scholarly Books of 2021

Revolution in Development uncovers the surprising influence of postrevolutionary Mexico on the twentieth century's most important international economic institutions. Drawing on extensive archival research in Mexico, the United States, and Great Britain, Christy Thornton meticulously traces how Mexican officials repeatedly rallied Third World leaders to campaign for representation in global organizations and redistribution through multilateral institutions. By decentering the United States and Europe in the history of global economic governance, Revolution in Development shows how Mexican economists, diplomats, and politicians fought for more than five decades to reform…


Book cover of Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy in Current Perspective: The Origins and the Prospects of Our International Economic Order

Francine McKenzie Author Of GATT and Global Order in the Postwar Era

From my list on why international trade is all about politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of history at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. I have written about the history of international organizations, international trade, the British Commonwealth, and Canada in the world. Although these topics have taken me in different directions, I have always examined the political currents that run through them. Politics emerge in relation to ideology, policymaking, leadership, norms, values, interests, identity, international relations, and global governance. I have been especially interested in connecting economics and politics. Many scholars write about trade policies, organizations, and negotiations as though they are technical and narrowly economic when they are agents, instruments, and expressions of international politics. 

Francine's book list on why international trade is all about politics

Francine McKenzie Why did Francine love this book?

If you can get past the title, this book is a model for how to write about international economic diplomacy.

Gardner connects technical matters like tariffs, exchange rates, quantitative restrictions, and loans to ideology, the status of nations, and relations between states. Set in the 1940s, it follows American and British efforts to set up the IMF, World Bank, and GATT.

Although officials believed that the highest political stakes were connected to trade – the peace and security of the world were at issue – they fought constantly about trade. 

Book cover of Red Globalization: The Political Economy of the Soviet Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev

Francine McKenzie Author Of GATT and Global Order in the Postwar Era

From my list on why international trade is all about politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of history at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. I have written about the history of international organizations, international trade, the British Commonwealth, and Canada in the world. Although these topics have taken me in different directions, I have always examined the political currents that run through them. Politics emerge in relation to ideology, policymaking, leadership, norms, values, interests, identity, international relations, and global governance. I have been especially interested in connecting economics and politics. Many scholars write about trade policies, organizations, and negotiations as though they are technical and narrowly economic when they are agents, instruments, and expressions of international politics. 

Francine's book list on why international trade is all about politics

Francine McKenzie Why did Francine love this book?

This revisionist book rejects the established view that the Soviet Union opted out of the global economy to develop a parallel and exclusive communist economic system.

Despite a Cold War logic in which communist and capitalist economic systems were understood to be incompatible and engaged in a zero-sum competition, Sanchez Sibony shows that Soviet officials and leaders wanted to be engaged in the global economy, at least partly. They wanted imports; they were less keen to export.

This doesn’t make the global economy less political or ideological, but it means the Cold War alone does not explain how economics and politics interacted with one another in the formulation of Soviet foreign economic policy. 

By Oscar Sanchez-Sibony,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Red Globalization as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Was the Soviet Union a superpower? Red Globalization is a significant rereading of the Cold War as an economic struggle shaped by the global economy. Oscar Sanchez-Sibony challenges the idea that the Soviet Union represented a parallel socio-economic construct to the liberal world economy. Instead he shows that the USSR, a middle-income country more often than not at the mercy of global economic forces, tracked the same path as other countries in the world, moving from 1930s autarky to the globalizing processes of the postwar period. In examining the constraints and opportunities afforded the Soviets in their engagement of the…


Book cover of The Interpretation of Cultures

Robert Darnton Author Of Pirating and Publishing: The Book Trade in the Age of Enlightenment

From my list on anthropology for lovers of history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an emeritus professor from Harvard and have spent decades trying to develop an anthropological mode of understanding history. Far from being “one damned thing after another,” as Henry Ford allegedly put it, history is an attempt to understand the human condition. It brings us into contact with people in the past, showing us how they thought, felt, and acted. For many decades, anthropologists have endeavored to do the same thing, concentrating on people separated from us by space rather than time. By applying anthropological insights to historical research, I think it is possible to make the past come alive to modern readers, while at the same time making it interesting and even amusing.

Robert's book list on anthropology for lovers of history

Robert Darnton Why did Robert love this book?

This collection of essays by one of the greatest anthropologists of the last century inspired a whole generation of historians—for example, Joan Scott and William Sewell, Jr. as well as myself.  The essays also should appeal to the general reader because of their well-wrought style and wit.  Drawing on Max Weber, Geertz treats cultures as symbolic systems and shows how they helped ordinary people make sense of the world.  Far from wandering off into abstractions, he offers fine-grained descriptions of actual events, notably a Balinese cockfight in an essay that has been cited and debated endlessly among social scientists.

By Clifford Geertz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Interpretation of Cultures as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Interpretation of Cultures, the most original anthropologist of his generation moved far beyond the traditional confines of his discipline to develop an important new concept of culture. This groundbreaking book, winner of the 1974 Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association, helped define for an entire generation of anthropologists what their field is ultimately about.


Book cover of The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality

Lodewijk Smets Author Of Retooling Development Aid in the 21st Century: The Importance of Budget Support

From my list on economic growth and international development.

Why am I passionate about this?

As Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Lucas put it, "Once you start thinking about economic growth, it's hard to think about anything else." That's why I am eager to share the best books on economic development with you! I am a Senior Economist at the World Bank, the world's premier development institution. Over the years, I have developed a deep interest in what makes countries prosper, have published extensively on the topic in academic journals, and earned a PhD in Economics along the way. As a development practitioner, I have been supporting sustainable growth across the globe, with working experience in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific. 

Lodewijk's book list on economic growth and international development

Lodewijk Smets Why did Lodewijk love this book?

In a captivating journey from the dawn of human existence to the present, Oded Galor offers a fascinating tale of why some nations have developed while others haven't.

The book explains how technology, family size, and adaptation led to a profound change in human history, with the Industrial Revolution as the turning point. The fundamental forces driving the explosion of per capita prosperity (in some nations) can be traced back to sound political institutions, conducive cultural traits, and an 'optimal' ethnic diversity that followed from the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa some 70,000 years ago.

I was struck by how the author brought together a wide variety of research on growth and development in a coherent framework.

By Oded Galor,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Journey of Humanity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This breakthrough scientific masterwork - and INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - reveals the underlying forces that have shaped human history and will secure our future...

'Masterful. Galor answers the ultimate mystery' Lewis Dartnell

The stunning advances that have transformed human experience in recent centuries are no accident of history - they are the result of universal and timeless forces, operating since the dawn of our species. Drawing on a lifetime's scientific investigation, Oded Galor's ground-breaking new vision overturns a host of long-held assumptions to reveal the deeper causes that have shaped the journey of humanity:

Education rather than industrialisation
Family size and…


Book cover of How to Have Theory in an Epidemic: Cultural Chronicles of AIDS

Andrea Kitta Author Of The Kiss of Death: Contagion, Contamination, and Folklore

From my list on reads before the next pandemic.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been interested in medicine and how stories influence the decisions that people make for as long as I can remember. Watching family and friends make choices about their own healthcare was always fascinated to me and I was always curious as to why some narratives had more staying power than others. After getting my BA in history, I was lucky enough to talk to someone who suggested that I study folklore. I ended up with both a MA and PhD in folklore and became a professor who studies the intersection of folklore and how it affects the medical decisions we all make in our own lives and the lives of others. 

Andrea's book list on reads before the next pandemic

Andrea Kitta Why did Andrea love this book?

When the pandemic first started and we learned that we would be teaching fully online, I snuck back into my office on campus to grab the books I knew that I would need during the pandemic. This was one of the first books I grabbed because I knew that I needed to reread it before I answered any questions about COVID.

Paula Treichler does an amazing job discussing how disease has an “epidemic of meanings” and how those meaning influence the decisions we make and how we treat others. This book clearly shows how some narratives take hold while others are obscured. 

By Paula A. Treichler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Have Theory in an Epidemic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Paula A. Treichler has become a singularly important voice among the significant theorists on the AIDS crisis. Dissecting the cultural politics surrounding representations of HIV and AIDS, her work has altered the field of cultural studies by establishing medicine as a legitimate focus for cultural analysis. How to Have Theory in an Epidemic is a comprehensive collection of Treichler's related writings, including revised and updated essays from the 1980s and 1990s that present a sustained argument about the AIDS epidemic from a uniquely knowledgeable and interdisciplinary standpoint.
"AIDS is more than an epidemic disease," Treichler writes, "it is an epidemic…


Book cover of Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

Alan Flurry Author Of Cansville

From my list on help unlock your creativity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am committed to creative work. All of my adult life has been shaped by that commitment. And while I don’t directly recommend it (unconventional routes are unpaved, and, of course, there be dragons), I know it is the route to beauty and making the most out of the world as we live it. We’re lucky to make music, show love, and hand it down to our kids, but we need to tell stories, and we must have stories to tell. All of this arises from your creative power. I know a lot more than I can say with words, but the languages of sharing emerge from venturing into the unknown. 

Alan's book list on help unlock your creativity

Alan Flurry Why did Alan love this book?

Know your audience? I’m kidding—never condescend; there’s nothing to be gained. Leave the smug cleverness to the Gladwells and Pinkers; we’re seeking higher ground here. What is culture? Don’t act like you don’t want to talk about it – or the stakes. This is THE TALK we actually need to have.

We have an affinity for our own habits, and Bourdieu walks us through them using the socially innocent language of likes and dislikes. His is a very straightforward discussion of experiences and social conditions that you didn’t know you needed. How do tastes vary, and why? Hmmmm.

By Pierre Bourdieu, Richard Nice (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Distinction as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

No judgment of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focuses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.

In the course of everyday life people constantly choose between what they find aesthetically pleasing and what they consider tacky, merely trendy, or ugly. Bourdieu bases his study on surveys that took into account the multitude of social factors that play a part…


Book cover of Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan

Jilly Traganou Author Of The Tôkaidô Road: Travelling and Representation in EDO and Meiji Japan

From my list on travel in premodern and modern Japan.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an architect from Greece who traveled to Japan in the 1990s as an exchange student. Visiting Japan in the early 1990s was a transformative experience. It led me to a career at the intersection of Japanese studies and spatial inquiry and expanded my architectural professional background. I did my PhD on the Tokaido road and published it as a book in 2004. Since then I have written several other books on subjects that vary from the Olympic Games to social movements. In the last 16 years, I've taught at Parsons School of Design in New York where I am a professor of architecture and urbanism. My current project is researching the role of space and design in prefigurative political movements.

Jilly's book list on travel in premodern and modern Japan

Jilly Traganou Why did Jilly love this book?

I was extremely lucky to conduct my PhD research on Tokaido road in the 1990s. Books by scholars of Japanese Studies like Marily Ivy were extremely influential and opened my eyes to aspects that would not have been visible to me otherwise. 

The Discourses of the Vanishing was one such book that dispelled deeply rooted myths of Japan, especially the belief that Japan is a fully modernized country, that Japanese society is monolithic, and that Japan’s most noteworthy locales are its highly urbanized areas. What brought me to the book was Ivy’s examination of the Exotic Japan campaign of Japan’s railways in the late 1980s. This campaign was woven with powerful notions of furusato (nostalgia for one’s native place), neo-Japonesque exoticism, and other imaginary references of post-bubble Japan meant to appeal to women as new targets of Japan’s consumption campaigns.

Across the book’s six chapters, Ivy also takes us to…

By Marilyn Ivy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Discourses of the Vanishing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Deep anxieties about the potential loss of national identity and continuity disturb many in Japan, despite widespread insistence that it has remained culturally intact. In this conjoining of ethnography, history and cultural criticism, Marilyn Ivy discloses these anxieties, as she tracks what she calls the vanishing: marginalized events, sites and cultural practices suspended at moments of impending disappearance. Ivy shows how a fascination with cultural margins accompanied the emergence of Japan as a modern nation-state. This fascination culminated in the early 20th-century establishment of Japanese folklore studies and its attempts to record the spectral, sometimes violent, narratives of those margins.…


Book cover of The People: No Different Flesh

Sally Ember Author Of This Changes Everything

From my list on speculative fiction authors every sci fi author needs to read.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started reading sci-fi in 1962 with 1957's Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars and have loved it ever since. I became a sci-fi writer with my first three books in utopian speculative fiction, The Spanner Series. Unfortunately, I stalled out due to a TBI, a cross-country move, and other distractions, but I do plan to continue with the other 7 volumes in my utopian speculative fiction series some day. The writers in my “best of” list are some of my lifelong inspirations, so I hope newer readers can enjoy and learn from their works as much as I have.

Sally's book list on speculative fiction authors every sci fi author needs to read

Sally Ember Why did Sally love this book?

Zenna Henderson's entire The People series is worth reading, including the original short stories. These were all published at a time when very few female sci-fi authors were published. There is also a film that is fairly faithful to the books. Her creativity, her understanding the experience of immigrants and those who are “different,” and her depictions of the ways humans and immigrants are likely to re/act are timeless, offering stellar insights into our modern-day experiences. Sci-fi authors would do well to read all her books to learn how to do world-building, draw parallels between non-human species and humans, and analogize modern dilemmas as speculative fiction plots.

By Zenna Henderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Avon No. S328


Book cover of Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy
Book cover of Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy
Book cover of Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy in Current Perspective: The Origins and the Prospects of Our International Economic Order

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