Robert Pahre has written an excellent book on trade politics of the nineteenth century. His thoughtful and systematic treatment challenges a multitude of assumptions and conclusions about trade policy, offering a fresh way of thinking about trade cooperation. Unlike many contemporary works in international political economy, the book does not read like an ax-grinding exercise (e.g., this is the best and only worthwhile approach to the subject), but rather it reads as if Pahre was motivated to “get it right”—to be very accurate and to account for as many anomalies as possible. The result is a masterful work that should find its place on every trade scholar's bookshelf.

Pahre seeks to provide a truly political economy of nineteenth-century trade cooperation and persuasively argues that his approach explains much that economics and functional approaches in political science cannot. He endeavors to explain variation in trade cooperation—when and why states did and did not cooperate over trade—and finds that a theory of “political support” goes a long way to account for the historical fluctuations between 1815 and 1914. For the author, political support is a concept rooted in domestic politics and is attentive to distributive consequences of trade policy. The theory assumes a single policymaker who “supplies” policy (rather than the traditional focus on demanders of either protectionism or liberalization). Counterintuitive results flow from this initial focus; for example, Pahre finds that gaining wealth makes groups less influential. He finds that “leaders choose policy that compensates those people who are harmed by exogenous change, such as changes in the world economy. They pay for this compensatory policy by drawing off some of the benefits that would otherwise have gone to the ‘winners’ from change” (p. 11). This leads to some interesting results. For instance, when he gets to his discussion of trade treaties, the theory of political support suggests that treaties make tariff cuts possible that would be impossible unilaterally, and that treaties yield political support from exporters greater than the support lost by import-competing groups (p. 190).

Thus, Pahre identifies a common approach to nineteenth-century trade policy: “protectionist reciprocitarianism.” As clunky as the term might sound, it captures something important. Furthermore it helps to clarify what is behind the many conflicting accounts of late-nineteenth-century trade in particular. Many scholars characterize the period after the repeal of Britain's Corn Laws as progressively liberalizing (leading to comparisons with that era and contemporary globalization), whereas others insist that the world economy never fully opened up and that trade protection was ongoing. Pahre illuminates the concept of protectionist reciprocitarianism and shows us that both assessments of the period are partly true; liberalization and protectionism coexisted in a patchwork pattern that depended on one's bilateral relations. Thus, the picture is more complex and nuanced than portrayed in most contemporary accounts, but in ways that his approach can explain. His treatment of this period is quite edifying and cuts through some apparent confusion in the wider literature.

Pahre has brought together a broad and deep range of insights into a single account. One can see extensions of Robert Gilpin's arguments about demands for protectionism (War and Change in World Politics, 1981), Kenneth Oye's findings about the value of economic discrimination (Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange, 1993), Christina Davis's research on issue linkage and two-level games in trade negotiation (Food Fights over Fair Trade, 2003), and John Odell's work on reversion points (or BATNAs—best alternative to no agreement) (Negotiating the World Economy, 2000). Pahre weaves these diverse insights into a synthetic and compelling account of trade cooperation; this is an impressive achievement.

The author builds his case systematically, step by step. As a “bottom-up” approach rooted in domestic politics, he begins by explaining variations in trade cooperation within individual states. Chapters 2 through 5 focus on domestic politics. Having established the operation of political support within states, he moves on to examine dyads and variation at that level in Chapters 6 through 9. He then builds his case at the systemic level and develops it in Chapters 10 through 12. He does a fine job of leading the reader along his intellectual journey to his conclusions.

The book is so dense and rich it is impossible to cover the many interesting findings and innovations of his approach. For example, Pahre finds that Most Favored Nation status may inhibit the spread of cooperation and reduce its depth (p. 284). He emphasizes political factors as paramount throughout the discussion. His treatment of norms is designed to capture variation, and to this end he separates behavioral components from prescriptive components. Thus, for Pahre, a norm is “simply a rule about appropriate behavior, whether or not any state holds this norm to be a guide” (p. 285). By severing the links between the definition of the norm and the relevant behavior, one can better explain variation “because states need not act on the basis of the norm” (p. 285). He also challenges the conventional wisdom about the relationship between democracy and trade liberalization. He finds that institutions such as democracy do not have uniform effects on trade policy; democracy has no simple, universal effect on the autonomous tariff (p. 153). He criticizes functionalist arguments for being ahistorical and for failing to account for variations in Most Favored Nation status in trade treaties (p. 289).

Pahre's theory of political support demonstrates that despite economists' consistent advice, politicians may be wise to resist unilateral liberalization on welfare grounds. He states that “[i]f foreign politicians worry about political support, then unilateral home liberalization will induce increases in foreign tariffs” (p. 369; emphasis in the original). His bottom line is that reciprocity and trade treaties can restrain protectionist coalitions. His relatively simple theory generates many testable hypotheses and performs well empirically across time and across nations. He incorporates historical detail and makes good use of the context of the times that he is studying. The analysis offers optimism for trade cooperation going forward and suggests that lessons from the nineteenth century would be helpful to remember today. While this book is quite an achievement and a major contribution to our understanding of trade cooperation, it is not for the faint of heart. His meticulousness can get in the way of the narrative. The reader's patience is required, but it is ultimately rewarded.