Frank Trentmann has written an ambitious and engaging history of the rise and fall of the idea of free trade in Britain, with particular emphasis on the period from 1901 to 1930. For him, the “book is about how free trade became so uniquely central to democratic culture and national identity in Britain, and how it lost that centrality during and after the First World War” (p. 3).

As stated, this is an ambitious undertaking and contains potentially useful insights into how nineteenth-century Liberals morphed into twentieth-century Labourites, or how free trade went from being about uplifting the working classes to being an impediment to broad social ideals. Along the way, the author clearly sees this transformation as a precursor of the broader transformation of the international debate from a time when many sides viewed market liberalism as democratic empowerment to the modern era when opponents of something called “globalization” characterize it as an oppressive force that is an impediment to spreading social justice. Whereas the nineteenth century saw cheap food (the “cheap loaf”) as a symbol of free trade and broad welfare, the 1930s saw attacks on economic liberalism and increasing calls for price controls and regulatory intervention.

While the author does a good job of laying out this compelling tale, his desire to untether the discussion from the theory of free trade and from theoretical or statistical analyses of the political economy of trade policy makes it hard to understand which changes really mattered.

The writing can be forceful and arresting and we are treated to descriptions and photos of the posters and slogans used by critics and supporters of free trade. But there is very little in the way of analysis to help us understand the degree to which public opinion was shaped by these rhetorical choices or whether particularly clever posters or slogans succeeded in turning the views of a critical segment of the voting public.

For example, there are interesting maps showing the location and numbers of lectures in support of free trade prior to the December 1910 elections without showing equivalents for comparable activity of opposing groups. Even worse, we have no context in which to view these figures. Were the lectures about rallying strong supporters or about targeting strategic outposts of independents (as we might say in modern electoral jargon)? And irrespective of the answers to these questions, what would a fuller accounting of these diagrams really tell us about the mechanisms that determined how public opinion was formed?

This is not about the presence or absence of statistical analysis, but the author hints at much throughout the book without making clear exactly what his views are or how we might come to verify them.

At the same time, he cannot escape the tyranny of implicit theorizing, especially when generalizing about movements and motives.

For example, I do not understand nor see evidence for claims such as “it was neither the hedonistic shopper nor the rational economic individual who would drive the growing appeal of the consumer in public discourse. Rather, ‘the consumers’ matured in the political realm over questions of ethics, community, and citizenship” (p. 70).

I find bewildering this ex post labeling of different claims as either representing or not some class of “consumers” and see little evidence that the rhetoric matches the claims. Describing the rising support for regulatory controls and international cooperation in food production after the war, we are told, “Organized consumers agreed that they were no longer protected by free trade” (p. 209) based on the views of a self-styled Consumers' Council. Yet why should one grant the Consumers' Council their claim to the general interest? Might they not have been the instrument of self-serving industry groups or of ideologically motivated clusters seeking to claim the mantle of consumer protection for their narrow purposes? Any discussion of extended governmental regulation and those agitating for it calls to mind the so-called coalition of “Bootleggers and Baptists” that economists have identified as critical to the promotion and passage of regulatory extension (see B. Yandle. “Bootleggers and Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist.” Regulation 7 [1983]: 12.)

Sometimes, as when discussing British adherence to free trade policies in the nineteenth century, the book blurs the distinction between the political benefits of an action to the state or elites with the material benefits to the overall British economy. For example, the question of whether Britain did in fact provide a “public good” through its policies that upheld free trade in Europe is dependent on your view that a) Britain was a consistent free trader; b) that it courageously gave up static benefits through lower tariffs; and c) induced freer trade in others by its actions. All three claims are subject to some qualification. If anything, the times when British market power were strongest were in the early 1800s when British tariffs were at their highest, whereas British free trade was most principled late in the century, when market power was weakest. Similarly, the British initially opposed bilateral agreements and it is not clear that free trade in Europe was due to British unilateral liberalism or ideologically incorrect bilateral treaties that locked much of Europe into keeping tariffs low.

Most important is the discussion of the changes following the First World War. Although the coverage seems quite wide ranging, the focus on specific issues and arguments surrounding the desirability of international controls and domestic regulation of trade, especially in food, may be misleading. Do we miss the forest for the trees? What about the more general, albeit less nuanced, observation that the war inevitably paved the way for more state expansion, some of it permanent, and the specific form and rhetoric surrounding that change were of secondary importance for all the national participants, whether in Britain, the Continent, or even the United States? What role did technological changes in transportation or developments in the banking industry have in creating the conditions suitable for greater regulation? Were the forms of the debate a major or minor contributor to this?

This is an intriguing work that will be of continuing interest to those wishing to understand commercial policy. But at the end of the day, a sociocultural discussion of political economy must come to grips with both the politics and economics. One needn't judge the “rightness” of a particular view to realize that it is not possible to discuss commercial policy and politics without recourse to the theory and statistics that the author wishes to leave out, if only for the purposes of better framing this otherwise admirable work.