The book provides a clear analysis of the ways in which states and markets developed and interacted over time. It combines relevant theory and adopts a truly global perspective in a way which helps explain the background to current international economic and political trends.

Dr Paul Flenley, University of Portsmouth

Herman M. Schwartz's States Versus Markets is one of the most theoretically and historically comprehensive accounts of the rise of the world economy and its cycles of globalization. The book rejects linear and single-factor accounts to instead develop a dynamic interactive model that explains how the economic forces of markets and the political interests of rulers combined with Schumpeterian technological cycles to produce the modern states and markets of our times. It does so by locating the latter's origins in the agricultural microeconomies of the early modern era, while masterfully tracing the concentrically expanding geographic realms of markets organized alongside empires, transnational corporations, and modern states across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The book develops a sophisticated argument without ever compromising readability, making it an exemplary book for advanced students of international political economy.

Dr Besnik Pula, Virginia Tech University

States versus Markets is field defining. It provides a basis to comprehend the current unravelling of world order, and what will be either the Chinese century or a period of fragmentation characterized by heightened, class, race and interstate conflict and a failure to harness the leading sectors of the economy to an ecologically and socially stable compromise. No other book in International Political Economy provides such a compelling invitation to the disciple and clear road map as to how to navigate and engage it.

Duncan Wigan, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark