Corn Laws

The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism

by Adrian Wooldridge  · 7 Apr 2026  · 342pp  · 129,097 words

to the intellectual power of liberalism that its long reign as a governing philosophy was ushered in by a Tory, Robert Peel, who abolished the Corn Laws in 1846, splitting his own party in the process, on the sound free-market principle that they protected the landed elite from the vagaries of

…

a trickle. Smoot–Hawley, in particular, provoked tit-for-tat responses from Europe. Even Britain, which had championed free trade since the repeal of the Corn Laws, embraced protectionism in February 1932, raising tariffs and providing special preferences for the empire and a few favoured trading partners. Germany declared a policy of

…

fulminated against the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with East Asia; The Economist was founded in 1843 to secure the abolition of the Corn Laws; John Stuart Mill argued that the civil service should be thrown open to merit rather than used as a foundling home for indolent children of

…

–42 reweaving social fabric 251–3 San Francisco 242–3 Cook, Robin 192 Cook, Tim 206 Coolidge, Calvin 86 Cooper, Robert 233 Corbyn, Jeremy 153 Corn Laws 18–19, 86, 205 corporations xi, xii, xviii, xxi, xxii, 55, 68, 79, 90, 137, 185, 188–9, 195, 198, 202–5, 223–5, 235

The Insatiable Machine

by Trevor Jackson  · 15 Mar 2026  · 270pp  · 104,133 words

1848 crop was only two-thirds the normal amount. The Tory British government first tried to enact some relief laws, but also incoherently repealed the Corn Laws that had protected British grain farming, intending to make food cheaper and more market dependent. Controversy over it led to the fall of the government

…

, 148 bounty to whalers, 187–88 Bubble Act of 1720, 96–97 Calico Acts of 1700 and 1720, 180–81 colonial debt guaranteed by, 219 Corn Laws, 185 Factory Act of 1833, 176 indemnities to slave owners, 155–56, 168, 212 Indian railroads guaranteed by, 206–7 Isaac Newton’s seat in

…

, 118–20 regulating, 21 wealth inequality and, 239 See also luxury goods convict labor, 112, 117, 156 copper, 53, 58–59, 70–71, 143, 212 Corn Laws (UK), 185 corporations joint-stock companies, 23, 67–68, 79–80, 83, 88–90, 93–97, 100, 107 the modern corporation, 41, 195, 198–99

Europe: A History

by Norman Davies  · 1 Jan 1996

the gates, often for decades. The unreformed parliament, which survived till 1832, was a scandalous anachronism, like its French counterpart under the July Monarchy. The Corn Laws held out against Free Trade until 1846. Civil marriage and divorce only became possible in 1836 and 1857 respectively. The demands for universal suffrage first

Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War

by Branko Milanovic  · 9 Oct 2023

that attracted economists, especially after economics became highly mathematicized in the late nineteenth century. Ricardo elevated the local problems of England to universal significance. The Corn Laws, against which his volume was directed, were an attempt at economic protection which raised the cost of living by placing tariffs on imported food. But

…

clarity is one of the reasons for the sustained intellectual success of the Principles. The book, as mentioned, was conceived as a pamphlet against the Corn Laws. But to show how detrimental these laws were to English growth, Ricardo created the first and possibly the most influential model in economic science. Before

…

only. (As for the physiocrats, “net income” meant only the income of the proprietaires.) The Evolution of Wages, Profits, and Rent The object of the Corn Laws was to regulate the amount of food imports in function of the domestic price and output of crops, reducing tariffs only when domestic production was

…

insufficient. The argument against them can be quickly summarized: If the Corn Laws are maintained, and the population of England keeps rising, corn will have to be cultivated on ever less fertile soils. This means that costs of

…

more expensive, all other portions of the land (the more fertile, inframarginal plots) will yield higher rent. Thus, with rising population and continuation of the Corn Laws, rent will go up. But the rising cost of subsistence will also increase the nominal wage. The cost of subsistence goes up because corn is

…

geopolitical implications. Almost thirty years later, the idea that England needed imports of food to continue her industrial growth led to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and then to the dependence on what Kenneth Pomeranz in The Great Divergence calls “ghost acreage”—that is, foreign land (mostly in the United States

…

his writing in the first place—for Principles was written backward, or “reverse engineered,” from the desired conclusion to the model—was policy-oriented. The Corn Laws needed to be abolished lest rent skyrocket, an increasing labor share reduce profits to zero, and growth stop. Here we see clearly the integration of

…

the two states of England as Ricardo sees them: with and without the Corn Laws. We can easily contrast the improving state of England if the Corn Laws are abolished with the desolate or stationary state of the economy if the Corn Laws are kept. The real wage is assumed to be constant throughout. In the

…

practical matter, he preferred to assume that real wages were constant. Table 3.2  The Two States of England Import of corn and growing economy Corn Laws and stationary economy Rents Decreasing Increasing Real wages Fixed Fixed Profits Increasing Decreasing Rent share Decreasing Increasing Wage share Decreasing Increasing Profit rate Increasing Decreasing

…

Investments Increasing Decreasing Growth rate Higher Lower, possibly zero In the struggle between landlords and capitalists, in the case of the maintenance of the Corn Laws, the share of profits must decrease as it is squeezed from both ends: from the increasing wage share and from rising rents. Rent share most

…

sees high profits as a sign of a dynamic and growing economy. Figure 3.3. Growth incidence curves with and without the Corn Laws Note: Left panel shows the scenario if Corn Laws are maintained, right panel if they are abolished. The Ricardian Windfall We have already seen that, in Ricardo’s work, the

…

link between income distribution and growth is very clear. The two societies he compares—the stationary society under the Corn Laws and the dynamic society without them—differ in their levels of income inequality, too. The stationary society is the one with high inequality: it has

…

decrease to 4 pounds, 4 shillings, and 8 pence (a decrease of 6 percent). 37 The former shift, of course, reflects the continuation of the Corn Laws, and the latter shift reflects their abolition. Figure 3.3 (in its left and right panels) shows what happens to nominal incomes of workers, capitalists

…

the left panel, capitalists’ incomes go down by about 3 percent, and landlords’ incomes increase by a whopping 27 percent. With the continuation of the Corn Laws, not only will functional income distribution move in favor of the rich landlords but personal income distribution will get worse as the richest class gains

…

David Ricardo, the very opposite is true: lower interpersonal inequality leads to faster economic growth. It wasn’t until thirty years after Principles that the Corn Laws in England were rescinded, but one can easily see the attractiveness of the sketch of development Ricardo presented to his readers: it promised both to

…

of society. But this was no less true, we should note, for other economists discussed in this book. The fear of economic stagnation, were the Corn Laws maintained, drove Ricardo to write his Principles. 24 Quesnay’s desire for a powerful agricultural kingdom led him to describe, using Le tableau économique, the

…

responded to some political events: changes in government, expanded franchise, wars, workers’ parties, various Factory Acts, strikes, agitation of the suffragettes, the repeal of the Corn Laws, the power of aristocracy. None of that is even mentioned. It would appear that policy takes place in a political vacuum. It is important, however

…

Big Trade-off, rev. and expanded ed., foreword by Lawrence Summers (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015). 40 . The effect of the repeal of the Corn Laws was consistent with what Ricardo expected: workers and capitalists gained in real terms, landlords lost, and overall income inequality shrank. Douglas A. Irwin and Maksym

…

G. Chepeliev, “The Economic Consequences of Sir Robert Peel: A Quantitative Assessment of the Repeal of the Corn Laws,” Working Paper 28142, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge MA, November 2020, rev. January 2021. 4. Karl Marx 1 . Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism

…

, 320n122 Confucius, 8 Conrad, Sebastian, 259 constant capital, 121 , 137 , 140 , 141 , 146 , 148 constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function, 317n86 Cook, Eli, 118 corn: laws, 82 , 93 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 102 , 102 , 103 , 103–104 , 172 , 265 , 312n40 ; prices, 94 , 100 , 103–104 , 310n16 , 311n38 ; production, 90 , 92 , 93 corruption

…

, 8 , 105 , 214 , 266 ; with capital and labor, 137 ; with capitalists and income, 45 , 45n ; class conflict and, 100–101 ; class struggle and, 122 , 123 ; Corn Laws and, 82 , 93 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 102 , 102 , 103 , 103–104 , 172 , 312n40 ; distribution model, 94 , 95 ; with distribution theory, 98 ; An Essay on the

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Hardback) - Common

by Alan Greenspan  · 14 Jun 2007

his immediate successors, mercantilism was gradually dismantled and economic freedom spread widely In Britain, this process reached its finale with the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws, a set of tariffs that for many years had blocked imports of grain, keeping grain prices and therefore landowners' rents artificially high—and elevating, of

…

8 0 - 8 1 , 382, 383-85, 387-88,390-91 use of word, 381 Coors Brewing Company, 50 copper, 42, 257 corn ethanol, 461 Corn Laws, 264 corporate governance, 278, 4 2 3 - 3 6 AG's role in, 77-80, 100, 101, 209, 3 7 1 , 427-28 authoritarianism in

Swindled: the dark history of food fraud, from poisoned candy to counterfeit coffee

by Bee Wilson  · 15 Dec 2008  · 384pp  · 122,874 words

tea passing through the Exchequer. These were different times, though, with the price of all food at a premium following the wars with France. The Corn Laws, introduced in 1815 to safeguard the livelihood of British farmers, kept the price of wheat, and thence bread, artificially high. Meanwhile, duties on luxuries such

Kicking Awaythe Ladder

by Ha-Joon Chang  · 4 Sep 2000  · 192pp

play the role of the architect and hegemon of a new 'Liberal' world economic order, particularly once it had abandoned its deplorable agricultural protection (the Corn Laws) and other remnants of old mercantilist protectionist measures in 1846. In its quest for this Liberal world order, Britain's ultimate weapon was its economic

…

century, albeit a brief one, when liberal trade regimes prevailed in large parts of the world economy. Starting in 1846 with the repeal of the Corn Laws, Britain made a decided shift to a unilateral free trade regime (which was accomplished by the 1860s), although this move was based on its then

…

few limited areas where countries like Belgium and Switzerland possessed technological leads over Britain (see section 2.2.6). Although a new Corn Law passed in 1815 (Britain had had numerous Corn Laws dating back to 1463) meant an increase in agricultural protection, the pressure for freer trade was building up.40 Although there

…

(voluntary export restraints); quotas on textile and clothing (through the Multi-Fibre Agreement); protection and subsidies for agriculture (compare this with the repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain); and unilateral trade sanctions (especially through the use of anti-dumping duties).86 In contrast to the attitude of a generation ago, represented

…

in the earlier periods, but was still significant in the decades following Britain's shift to free trade in 1846 with the repeal of the Corn Laws.132 Table 2.2 Protectionism in Britain and France, 1821-1913 (measured by net customs revenue as a percentage of net import values) Years 1821

…

) in relation to the wool trade, the leading industry of the time. Between Walpole's trade policy reform of 1721 and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, Britain had implemented the kinds of ITT policies that became famous for their use in the East Asian 'industrial policy states' of Japan

…

that free imports of agricultural products by Britain would discourage manufacturing in competitor countries that would not have developed without the presence of the British Corn Laws. C. The USA as 'the mother country and bastion of modern protectionism' It was the USA, and not Germany as is commonly believed, which first

…

, 25, 52-3, 139-40 Communism 15, 72, 89, 99, 133 Competiton law see anti-trust regulations copyrights 52, 84, 86-7, 121t, 123t, 125 Corn Laws Belgium 43 UK 13, 16, 23, 29, 43, 52, 61 Cote d'lvoire 124, 126t Defoe, Daniel 20-1 democracy 1, 71, 73-8, 84

This Sceptred Isle

by Christopher Lee  · 19 Jan 2012  · 796pp  · 242,660 words

Crisis; Opium War 1840 Prince Albert; Treaty of Waitangi 1843 Joule’s First Law 1844 Rochdale Pioneers; first telegraph line in England 1846 Repeal of Corn Laws 1847 Marks and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto 1849 Punjab conquered 1850 Public libraries; Tennyson, Poet Laureate 1854 Crimean War; British Medical Association founded 1855 Daily

…

off balance. The question in debate may have started with land-owning classes, but it would finish with more urban debate. The question of the Corn Laws had been around for generations; they had existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. They were protectionist laws that imposed duties on

…

political decision-makers and the one interest the Whigs had in common was that they were landowners. It would not matter how many times the Corn Laws became an issue, the Whigs would never repeal them. Nor would Peel’s own landowning Tories. And so when the 1815

…

, which was something of a dilemma for Peel who had a reputation for doing nothing until he had to. But the Anti-Corn Law League would not go away until the Corn Laws had. Moreover, the League was politically savvy. One ploy was to get people to buy forty-shilling (£2) freeholds and so

…

friends of Chartism. In fact, this threat of something more than legislative action may have directly encouraged Peel to agree to get rid of the Corn Laws. His obvious difficulty was that a large number of his political group were landowners. In August 1845, the potato crop failed in Ireland and Peel

…

for him whatever the damage they might do to the Tories, that is, to their own people. This fight to stop the repeal of the Corn Laws would strip the Tories of any cohesion Peel had hoped to preserve. And the man who led the Tory protectionists and attacked Peel was the

…

MP for only nine years. His name was Benjamin Disraeli. Chartists, protectionists, landowners and industrialists clashed in the furious debate over the repeal of the Corn Laws. The landowners said the League was backed by industrialists who wanted cheap corn, and therefore cheap bread, so that workers had one less good reason

…

The Times, John Walter, that Disraeli saw his chance to show the public that he was wise enough to warn that the repeal of the Corn Laws would split the party, and that he was the man to speak for the landowning and agricultural interests of the people. Disraeli knew he had

…

party was shambling from one internal crisis to another, but the protectionists refused to reduce hostilities with Disraeli attacking Peel not so much over the Corn Laws (that was Disraeli’s vehicle) but for not leading the Tories in the direction they should be heading. Peel was in an impossible position. He

…

believed the economic situation demanded the repeal of the Corn Laws. It followed, to his way of thinking, that the party must therefore support these arguments otherwise it would be done for. He judged also that

…

was unambiguous. It would cut all import tariffs on grain – barley, oats and wheat – to a peppercorn sum: one shilling. On 25 June 1846 the Corn Laws were repealed. But on the same night as the Bill went through Disraeli and his friends, with no regard for the party, turned on Peel

…

ministers and prime ministers. But the extent of that problem would claim him as it did later politicians. In 1846, Ireland was almost destitute. The Corn Laws could do little for the people. There was a grain famine in Ireland and England, which imports could hardly replace. Then in a few months

…

monarchy, established ref 1 Cook, Capt. James ref 1, ref 2 Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftsbury ref 1, ref 2 Cope, John ref 1 Corn Laws ref 1 Cornwallis, Gen. Charles, Marquess ref 1, ref 2, ref 3 Cornwallis, Admiral William ref 1, ref 2 Counter-Reformation ref 1 Country Party

…

, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10 associations of ref 1 beginnings of ref 1 and Corn Laws ref 1 and Emancipation ref 1, ref 2 thought of as Conservatives ref 1 Torrington, Lord ref 1 Tostig ref 1 Townshend, Charles ref 1

…

, ref 12, ref 13, ref 14, ref 15, ref 16, ref 17, ref 18 beginnings of ref 1 breaking of reign of ref 1 and Corn Laws ref 1 and Emancipation ref 1 last PM among ref 1 Old and New ref 1 and unions ref 1 Wilberforce, William ref 1, ref

Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion

by Gareth Stedman Jones  · 24 Aug 2016  · 964pp  · 296,182 words

social was, he thought, happening everywhere. Something similar had occurred in England, where ‘in all questions from the Reform Bill until the abolition of the Corn Laws’, political parties fought about nothing except ‘changes in property rights’, while in Belgium the struggle of liberalism with Catholicism was ‘a struggle of industrial capital

…

politics of Dana and of Horace Greeley, the proprietor of the Tribune, were protectionist. Free trade, championed by England – especially after the Repeal of the Corn Laws – was, they argued, the means by which England dominated world commerce, and through its enforcement of the gold standard acted as the world’s banker

…

and industry had ‘shut up the mouths of those shallow Free Traders who for years had gone on preaching that since the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, glutted markets were impossible’. Furthermore, ‘the glut’ had been made more acute by the attempt to dump goods in newly developing extra-European

…

landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers.’180 For the representatives of the ‘Manchester School’ since their victory in 1846 with the Repeal of the Corn Laws, ‘the aristocracy’ was ‘their vanishing opponent’, ‘the working class’ ‘their arising enemy’. For the moment, as Karl admitted, they preferred to compromise with ‘the vanishing

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson  · 20 Mar 2012  · 547pp  · 172,226 words

middle-class groups that emerged around them began to protest their disenfranchisement and the government policies opposed to their interests. Their prime candidate was the Corn Laws, which banned the import of “corn”—all grains and cereals, but principally wheat—if the price got too low, thus ensuring that the profits of

…

Knight, a cotton manufacturer and reformer, and John Thacker Saxton, editor of the Manchester Observer. Sixty thousand protestors gathered, many holding banners such as “No Corn Laws,” “Universal Suffrage,” and “Vote by Ballot” (meaning voting should take place secretly, not openly, as it did in 1819). The authorities were very nervous about

…

. The consequent shift in political power moved policy in the direction favored by these newly represented interests; in 1846 they managed to get the hated Corn Laws repealed, demonstrating again that creative destruction meant a redistribution not just of income, but also of political power. And naturally, changes in the distribution of

…

a movement toward even more inclusive economic institutions. One major consequence of the First Reform Act was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. As we saw in chapter 7, the Corn Laws banned the import of grains and cereals, keeping their prices high and ensuring lucrative profits for large landowners. The new

…

. However, if in 1832 the expansion of the electorate, the reform of the rotten boroughs, and the repeal of the Corn Laws had all been on the table, landowners would have put up much more resistance. The fact that there were first limited political reforms and that

…

repeal of the Corn Laws came on the agenda only later defused conflict. Gradual change also prevented ventures into uncharted territories. A violent overthrow of the system means that something

The Classical School

by Callum Williams  · 19 May 2020  · 288pp  · 89,781 words

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

by Niall Ferguson  · 13 Nov 2007  · 471pp  · 124,585 words

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge

by Matt Ridley  · 395pp  · 116,675 words

More: The 10,000-Year Rise of the World Economy

by Philip Coggan  · 6 Feb 2020  · 524pp  · 155,947 words

The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace

by H. W. Brands  · 1 Oct 2012  · 939pp  · 274,289 words

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

by Sven Beckert  · 2 Dec 2014  · 1,000pp  · 247,974 words

Owning the Earth: The Transforming History of Land Ownership

by Andro Linklater  · 12 Nov 2013  · 603pp  · 182,826 words

The Economists' Hour: How the False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society

by Binyamin Appelbaum  · 4 Sep 2019  · 614pp  · 174,226 words

When They Go Low, We Go High: Speeches That Shape the World – and Why We Need Them

by Philip Collins  · 4 Oct 2017  · 475pp  · 156,046 words

Open: The Story of Human Progress

by Johan Norberg  · 14 Sep 2020  · 505pp  · 138,917 words

Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist

by Alex Zevin  · 12 Nov 2019  · 767pp  · 208,933 words

The English

by Jeremy Paxman  · 29 Jan 2013  · 364pp  · 103,162 words

How We Got Here: A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and Markets

by Andy Kessler  · 13 Jun 2005  · 218pp  · 63,471 words

Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity

by Ha-Joon Chang  · 4 Jul 2007  · 347pp  · 99,317 words

Marxian Economic Theory

by Meghnad Desai  · 20 May 2013

Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing

by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane  · 28 Feb 2017  · 346pp  · 90,371 words

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

by Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman  · 2 Jan 1980  · 376pp  · 118,542 words

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society

by Eric Posner and E. Weyl  · 14 May 2018  · 463pp  · 105,197 words

Culture & Empire: Digital Revolution

by Pieter Hintjens  · 11 Mar 2013  · 349pp  · 114,038 words

Empire of Guns

by Priya Satia  · 10 Apr 2018  · 927pp  · 216,549 words

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

by William J. Bernstein  · 5 May 2009  · 565pp  · 164,405 words

An Empire of Wealth: Rise of American Economy Power 1607-2000

by John Steele Gordon  · 12 Oct 2009  · 519pp  · 148,131 words

Adam Smith: Father of Economics

by Jesse Norman  · 30 Jun 2018

A Little History of Economics

by Niall Kishtainy  · 15 Jan 2017  · 272pp  · 83,798 words

The Mystery of Charles Dickens

by A. N. Wilson  · 3 Jun 2020  · 336pp  · 97,204 words

The Rough Guide to England

by Rough Guides  · 29 Mar 2018

What Would the Great Economists Do?: How Twelve Brilliant Minds Would Solve Today's Biggest Problems

by Linda Yueh  · 4 Jun 2018  · 453pp  · 117,893 words

The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today

by Linda Yueh  · 15 Mar 2018  · 374pp  · 113,126 words

America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy

by Robert B. Zoellick  · 3 Aug 2020

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles

by William Quinn and John D. Turner  · 5 Aug 2020  · 297pp  · 108,353 words

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

by Karl Polanyi  · 27 Mar 2001  · 495pp  · 138,188 words

Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization

by Harold James  · 15 Jan 2023  · 469pp  · 137,880 words

England: Seven Myths That Changed a Country – and How to Set Them Straight

by Tom Baldwin and Marc Stears  · 24 Apr 2024  · 357pp  · 132,377 words

An Edible History of Humanity

by Tom Standage  · 30 Jun 2009  · 282pp  · 82,107 words

The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914

by Richard J. Evans  · 31 Aug 2016  · 976pp  · 329,519 words

The Survival of the City: Human Flourishing in an Age of Isolation

by Edward Glaeser and David Cutler  · 14 Sep 2021  · 735pp  · 165,375 words

The London Compendium

by Ed Glinert  · 30 Jun 2004  · 1,088pp  · 297,362 words

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation

by Carl Benedikt Frey  · 17 Jun 2019  · 626pp  · 167,836 words

Andrew Carnegie

by David Nasaw  · 15 Nov 2007  · 1,230pp  · 357,848 words

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

by Ha-Joon Chang  · 26 Dec 2007  · 334pp  · 98,950 words

Capitalism and Freedom

by Milton Friedman  · 1 Jan 1962  · 275pp  · 77,955 words

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

by Matt Ridley  · 17 May 2010  · 462pp  · 150,129 words

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London

by Judith Flanders  · 14 Oct 2012  · 683pp  · 203,624 words

Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea

by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge  · 4 Mar 2003  · 196pp  · 57,974 words

Heaven's Command (Pax Britannica)

by Jan Morris  · 22 Dec 2010  · 699pp  · 192,704 words

Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy

by Benjamin Barber  · 20 Apr 2010  · 454pp  · 139,350 words

Piracy : The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates

by Adrian Johns  · 5 Jan 2010  · 636pp  · 202,284 words

The Making of Modern Britain

by Andrew Marr  · 16 May 2007  · 618pp  · 180,430 words

Capitalism in America: A History

by Adrian Wooldridge and Alan Greenspan  · 15 Oct 2018  · 585pp  · 151,239 words

The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State

by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge  · 14 May 2014  · 372pp  · 92,477 words

Where We Are: The State of Britain Now

by Roger Scruton  · 16 Nov 2017  · 190pp  · 56,531 words

Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain

by John Darwin  · 12 Feb 2013

More From Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources – and What Happens Next

by Andrew McAfee  · 30 Sep 2019  · 372pp  · 94,153 words

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson  · 15 May 2023  · 619pp  · 177,548 words

The Verdict: Did Labour Change Britain?

by Polly Toynbee and David Walker  · 6 Oct 2011  · 471pp  · 109,267 words

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty

by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson  · 23 Sep 2019  · 809pp  · 237,921 words

The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor, and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car

by Tim Harford  · 15 Mar 2006  · 389pp  · 98,487 words

The World's First Railway System: Enterprise, Competition, and Regulation on the Railway Network in Victorian Britain

by Mark Casson  · 14 Jul 2009  · 556pp  · 46,885 words

State of Emergency: The Way We Were

by Dominic Sandbrook  · 29 Sep 2010  · 932pp  · 307,785 words

Them And Us: Politics, Greed And Inequality - Why We Need A Fair Society

by Will Hutton  · 30 Sep 2010  · 543pp  · 147,357 words

The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy

by Dani Rodrik  · 23 Dec 2010  · 356pp  · 103,944 words

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World

by Niall Ferguson  · 1 Jan 2002  · 469pp  · 146,487 words

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

by Michael Shellenberger  · 28 Jun 2020

Dreams of Leaving and Remaining

by James Meek  · 5 Mar 2019  · 232pp  · 76,830 words

Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution

by Emma Griffin  · 10 Jun 2013

Winds of Change

by Peter Hennessy  · 27 Aug 2019  · 891pp  · 220,950 words

The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History

by David Edgerton  · 27 Jun 2018

Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics

by Robert Skidelsky  · 13 Nov 2018

Value of Everything: An Antidote to Chaos The

by Mariana Mazzucato  · 25 Apr 2018  · 457pp  · 125,329 words

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism

by Anne Case and Angus Deaton  · 17 Mar 2020  · 421pp  · 110,272 words

The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times

by Lionel Barber  · 5 Nov 2020

Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Sixth Edition

by Kindleberger, Charles P. and Robert Z., Aliber  · 9 Aug 2011

Wasps: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy

by Michael Knox Beran  · 2 Aug 2021  · 800pp  · 240,175 words

Planes, Trains and Toilet Doors: 50 Places That Changed British Politics

by Matt Chorley  · 8 Feb 2024  · 254pp  · 75,897 words

Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World's Most Successful Political Party

by Samuel Earle  · 3 May 2023  · 245pp  · 88,158 words

Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI

by John Cassidy  · 12 May 2025  · 774pp  · 238,244 words

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall and Unlikely Return of Conservatism

by Ed West  · 19 Mar 2020  · 530pp  · 147,851 words

The City on the Thames

by Simon Jenkins  · 31 Aug 2020

The Great Economists Ten Economists whose thinking changed the way we live-FT Publishing International (2014)

by Phil Thornton  · 7 May 2014

The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron and the Making of the Modern World

by Robert Morrison  · 3 Jul 2019

Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain

by Christian Wolmar  · 1 Mar 2009  · 493pp  · 145,326 words

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

by Robert Tressell  · 31 Dec 1913  · 768pp  · 291,079 words

Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations

by Norman Davies  · 30 Sep 2009  · 1,309pp  · 300,991 words

Capitalism: Money, Morals and Markets

by John Plender  · 27 Jul 2015  · 355pp  · 92,571 words

Running Money

by Andy Kessler  · 4 Jun 2007  · 323pp  · 92,135 words

The Road to Ruin: The Global Elites' Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis

by James Rickards  · 15 Nov 2016  · 354pp  · 105,322 words

Understanding Power

by Noam Chomsky  · 26 Jul 2010

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

by Daron Acemoğlu and James A. Robinson  · 28 Sep 2001

The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality

by Katharina Pistor  · 27 May 2019  · 316pp  · 117,228 words

Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World

by Joshua B. Freeman  · 27 Feb 2018  · 538pp  · 145,243 words

The Globotics Upheaval: Globalisation, Robotics and the Future of Work

by Richard Baldwin  · 10 Jan 2019  · 301pp  · 89,076 words

The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970

by John Darwin  · 23 Sep 2009

Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

by Norman Davies  · 27 Sep 2011

The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century

by Rodrigo Aguilera  · 10 Mar 2020  · 356pp  · 106,161 words

The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World

by Adrian Wooldridge  · 2 Jun 2021  · 693pp  · 169,849 words

Growth: A Reckoning

by Daniel Susskind  · 16 Apr 2024  · 358pp  · 109,930 words

The Taste of Empire: How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World

by Lizzie Collingham  · 2 Oct 2017  · 452pp  · 130,041 words

Water: A Biography

by Giulio Boccaletti  · 13 Sep 2021  · 485pp  · 133,655 words

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities

by John Cassidy  · 10 Nov 2009  · 545pp  · 137,789 words

Bureaucracy

by David Graeber  · 3 Feb 2015  · 252pp  · 80,636 words

Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire

by Simon Winchester  · 31 Dec 1985  · 382pp  · 127,510 words

The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times

by Giovanni Arrighi  · 15 Mar 2010  · 7,371pp  · 186,208 words

Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire

by Danny Dorling and Sally Tomlinson  · 15 Jan 2019  · 502pp  · 128,126 words

Brexit, No Exit: Why in the End Britain Won't Leave Europe

by Denis MacShane  · 14 Jul 2017  · 308pp  · 99,298 words

The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931

by Adam Tooze  · 13 Nov 2014  · 1,057pp  · 239,915 words

The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business

by Richard Brooks  · 2 Jan 2014  · 301pp  · 88,082 words

The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World

by Linsey McGoey  · 14 Sep 2019

What's Wrong With Economics: A Primer for the Perplexed

by Robert Skidelsky  · 3 Mar 2020  · 290pp  · 76,216 words

The Railways: Nation, Network and People

by Simon Bradley  · 23 Sep 2015  · 916pp  · 248,265 words

A Pelican Introduction Economics: A User's Guide

by Ha-Joon Chang  · 26 May 2014  · 385pp  · 111,807 words

Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis

by Anatole Kaletsky  · 22 Jun 2010  · 484pp  · 136,735 words

The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It

by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge  · 1 Sep 2020  · 134pp  · 41,085 words

Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation

by Brendan Simms  · 27 Apr 2016  · 380pp  · 116,919 words

Greater: Britain After the Storm

by Penny Mordaunt and Chris Lewis  · 19 May 2021  · 516pp  · 116,875 words

Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem

by Tim Shipman  · 30 Nov 2017  · 721pp  · 238,678 words

The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain

by Brett Christophers  · 6 Nov 2018

Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World

by Kwasi Kwarteng  · 14 Aug 2011  · 670pp  · 169,815 words

Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future

by Paul Mason  · 29 Jul 2015  · 378pp  · 110,518 words

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages

by Carlota Pérez  · 1 Jan 2002

How Did We Get Into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature

by George Monbiot  · 14 Apr 2016  · 334pp  · 82,041 words

The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas

by Janek Wasserman  · 23 Sep 2019  · 470pp  · 130,269 words

Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

by Sathnam Sanghera  · 28 Jan 2021  · 430pp  · 111,038 words

The Nanny State Made Me: A Story of Britain and How to Save It

by Stuart Maconie  · 5 Mar 2020  · 300pp  · 106,520 words

Social Class in the 21st Century

by Mike Savage  · 5 Nov 2015  · 297pp  · 89,206 words

The Weightless World: Strategies for Managing the Digital Economy

by Diane Coyle  · 29 Oct 1998  · 49,604 words

The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World

by Paul Morland  · 10 Jan 2019  · 405pp  · 121,999 words

This Land: The Struggle for the Left

by Owen Jones  · 23 Sep 2020  · 387pp  · 123,237 words

New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World--And How to Make It Work for You

by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms  · 2 Apr 2018  · 416pp  · 100,130 words

The Pineapple: King of Fruits

by Francesca Beauman  · 22 Feb 2011  · 324pp  · 101,552 words

A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth

by Chris Smaje  · 14 Aug 2020  · 375pp  · 105,586 words

Reaching for Utopia: Making Sense of an Age of Upheaval

by Jason Cowley  · 15 Nov 2018  · 283pp  · 87,166 words

St Pancras Station

by Simon Bradley  · 14 Apr 2007

Your Own Allotment : How to Find It, Cultivate It, and Enjoy Growing Your Own Food

by Russell-Jones, Neil.  · 21 Mar 2008

Names for the Sea

by Sarah Moss  · 27 Apr 2018

Half In, Half Out: Prime Ministers on Europe

by Andrew Adonis  · 20 Jun 2018  · 235pp  · 73,873 words

The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World

by Philip Coggan  · 1 Jul 2025  · 96pp  · 36,083 words