Introduction: the counter-revolution of neoliberalism -- Foucault and beyond -- The building of economics as a science -- The building of individuals as rational agents -- Turning the world into a firm -- Postscript: a new ethics for a new liberalism? -- Index

States of Credit provides the first comprehensive look at the joint development of representative assemblies and public borrowing in Europe during the medieval and early modern eras. In this pioneering book, David Stasavage argues that unique advances in political representation allowed certain...

Biographical note: McLeanIan W.: Ian W. McLean is currently a visiting research fellow in economics at the University of Adelaide, where he taught for many years. He is the coeditor of "The Australian Economy in the Long Run".

Power to the People examines the varied but interconnected relationships between energy consumption and economic development in Europe over the last five centuries. It describes how the traditional energy economy of medieval and early modern Europe was marked by stable or falling per capita...

Main description: Should South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Should Iraq be tied to Saddam Hussein's excesses? Odette Lienau shows that sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations must repay loans even after a regime change--relies on absolutist ideas, and explains why the...

Biographical note: KuranTimur: Timur Kuran is professor of economics and political science and the Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. He is the author of "Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism" (Princeton).

Main description: In 2004, Spain's Banco Santander purchased Britain's Abbey National Bank in a deal valued at fifteen billion dollars--an acquisition that made Santander one of the ten largest financial institutions in the world. Here, Mauro Guillén and Adrian Tschoegl tackle the question of...

Few periods in history compare to the Great Depression. Stock market crashes, bread lines, bank runs, and wild currency speculation were worldwide phenomena--all occurring with war looming in the background. This period has provided economists with a marvelous laboratory for studying the links...