The Capitalist Era: The Making—and Unmaking—of the Global Mind
By: Jeremy Adelman – Princeton University
In The Capitalist Era, leading global historian Jeremy Adelman puts the world’s current unwinding in much-needed historical perspective. Combining political, economic, intellectual, and environmental history, the book tells the epic story of the forces that, since the late eighteenth century, have transformed the world into a single but fractured survival unit that is integrated by exchange and flow, yet divided by suspicion and fear. It is a story of hopes for universal peace, panic over planetary destruction, and debates, policies, and media that have shaped how people view one another across distances and borders.
A vibrant history of deep interdependence under the capitalist era. A book that is more necessary than ever, a must-read.
Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics
Europe’s Poison Pill: The Unintended Consequences of Cohesion Funds and Why They Must End
By: Nuno Palma – University of Florida
For more than seven decades, the European Union has delivered on its founding promise of peace in Western Europe. Yet serious economic and political problems persist, among them widening regional inequality. Europe’s Poison Pill exposes the hidden costs of EU Cohesion Policy, showing how initiatives meant to promote convergence instead entrench stagnation, distort incentives, and defer essential reforms. Drawing on historical evidence, contemporary case studies, and economic analysis, Nuno Palma demonstrates that structural and investment funds operate as a modern resource curse, weakening many of the regions they target. The book offers a roadmap for restoring Europe’s competitiveness and institutional credibility. By challenging entrenched orthodoxies, it reframes the debate on Europe’s future and confronts the costs of preserving a failed model.
Palma provides a powerful critique of Europe’s cohesion programme, which only led, perversely, to further divergence between leading and lagging regions. The book argues vigorously that Europe should get back to its knitting: it should focus on completing the internal market and devote its scarce budgetary resources to high priorities, which now include external security and defence.
Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley
Pathway to Change – Culture, Economics, Human Progress, and Prosperity
By: Naci Mocan – Louisiana State University
In Pathway to Change, Naci Mocan investigates the economic origins of current cultural beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, highlighting the lasting impact of historical agricultural practices and ecological conditions. He shows that cultural traits evolve in response to external shocks—such as exposure to violence, changes in institutional quality, and the laws and law enforcement—and argues that culture and institutions influence each other: culture shapes the functioning of institutions, while institutions also mold cultural norms. As a result, the success of institutional reforms depends heavily on the cultural context in which they are implemented.
Mocan presents an impressive array of examples of cultural differences across the globe and examples of how these differences interplay with human welfare and institutions.
Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, University of Copenhagen
Financial Inclusion – How an Idea Became a Global Agenda
By: Tyler Girard – Purdue University
The number of people in the world with a bank account or money service provider increased by 2 billion over the past decade. This phenomenon reflects what Tyler Girard calls the global financial inclusion agenda. This agenda emerged in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and quickly became a prominent feature of global economic governance. The core idea of financial inclusion is that all individuals and businesses should have access to and use formal financial services, including bank accounts, payment services, credit, and insurance. Today, the widespread ability to digitally store and transfer money has impacted every aspect of our lives. What explains the emergence and evolution of the global financial inclusion agenda? And what does the politics of the agenda tell us about the impacts of new technologies on global politics and how ideas become global agendas?
Drawing on an original collection of primary documents and interviews with elites from Ghana, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland, this book traces the global financial inclusion agenda over time and interrogates its adaptation in specific contexts and issue areas. Through the concept of participatory ambiguity, Girard offers a novel explanation of the agenda that advances important debates in international relations and international political economy on the distribution of power and authority in global governance.
