Ever since the time of Adam Smith, the attribution to foreign trade of the abilityto affect the wholesale transformation of the productive powers of an economy hasremained a very powerful concept in both economics and economic history. At theheart of this interpretation is the observation that...

Under the international economic order which prevailed between the end of mercantilism and decolonisation (referred to in this essay as liberal imperialism) the costs of transacting, transporting and trading commodities, both within and across national and imperial frontiers declined sharply.1...