One from Many

We tend to talk about globalisation as if it arrived with container ships, multinationals and the internet. Christopher Meissner’s One from the Many: The Global Economy since 1850 (Oxford UP, 2024) argues that it has a far longer and messier history. In my latest New Books Network interview, I put that history, and some of its biggest open questions, to him.

A book for a nervous moment

Tariffs, industrial policy, “economic security” and the relocation of supply chains have revived the argument that globalisation is going into reverse. Meissner, Professor of Economics at UC Davis and a Research Associate at the NBER, takes the long view. Trade, capital and migration surged between 1850 and 1914, collapsed between the wars, and were rebuilt after 1945. His conclusion is that globalisation is hard to kill, but not guaranteed to survive. That depends on political choices and international cooperation.

If you teach economics, history or political science, or simply want to know whether today’s headlines signal the end of globalisation, this book and this conversation are for you. 

What we talk about

• Why the first globalisation happened, and what a Briton, an Argentine or an American in 1900 would have made of today’s world
• Migration: we have liberalised goods and capital far more than people, so how much does that limit globalisation’s power to reduce inequality?
• Whether backlash was always built into globalisation, or whether wars and shocks brought it down, and what that means for today’s politics
• The Great Depression and the question of leadership: can the world economy function without a power willing to underwrite it?
• The paradox of the US dollar, and why capital flows towards the richest economy rather than the poorest
• What evidence would convince Chris that “this time really is different”
• Writing a first book, and why economics works best inside history rather than bolted on beside it.

Some of these questions came from my own students, where the book is now core reading. They like it because it explains long-run change while making formal theory accesible.

What other reviewers say

Barry Eichengreen, in Foreign Affairs, praised its clarity and concision across nearly two centuries. In Good Reads, Jason Furman called it a reliable, readable history, well grounded in the research literature. Donald Boudreaux, in The Independent Review, judged it an admirable survey of key events and theories, although he took issue with some analytical choices. That makes it a useful starting point for readers who want to form their own view.