Problems of perspective : the myth of free trade Britain and fortress France -- The history of British economic policy -- The unbearable lightness of drink : assessing the effects of British tariffs on French wine -- The beginnings : trade and the struggle for European power in the late 1600s --...

In War, Wine, and Taxes, John Nye debunks the myth that Britain was a free-trade nation during and after the industrial revolution, by revealing how the British used tariffs--notably on French wine--as a mercantilist tool to politically weaken France and to respond to pressure from local brewers...

This paper examines Japan's response to ‘external pressure', mainly from Europe and the US, focussing on the ‘mercantile response' by merchants and financiers. Before the beginning of free trade in 1859, many money exchange merchants in Osaka transacted with merchants and wealthy farmers...