"Technologies have created crucial connections across borders requiring new forms of regulation. This book analyses how experts, cartels and international organizations have written the rules for Europe since around 1850. Based on fresh research in the archives of multiple international...

The book is based on the hypothesis that a systematic analysis of the Chinese economic discourse is necessary in order to understand the underlying logic of Chinese economic development. The majority of works on the subject see China's economic development as a linear process of marketization or...

Contents: Preface -- Part I: Introduction -- 1. Finding a common economic pathway -- 2. Transitions and revolutions -- Part II: Beginnings: place and people -- 3. Changing contexts -- 4. The past within us -- 5. The dynamic forager -- Part III: The agricultural phase, from 15000 BC to 1800 AD --...