The book examines the history and theoretical development of Political Economy, one of the most important scholarly disciplines to emerge from the European Enlightenment, and the subject which provided the basis for the later disciplines of Economics, Business Studies and International Political Economy and all forms of analysis which incorporate the study of overlapping economic and political relationships within and between states and civil societies.

The book aims:

1. To trace and analyse the links between ‘normative’ political economy and history, particularly those branches based on historical theorising which employ long term perspectives and incorporate dynamic change into models of periodization, evolution and revolution – in short those that adopt a diachronic approach which analyses multiple historical changes over time occurring at different speeds over different time periods.

2. To contrast this with political science/public choice forms of political economy, based largely upon synchronic analysis (simultaneous moment in time analysis) without neglecting the valuable insights that can be drawn from this alternative tradition.

3. To assess the current state of historical political economy and it’s potential to contribute to a fuller understanding of contemporary economic problems and issues, in particular in understanding the global economic collapse of 2007/8 and subsequent Eurozone Crisis and the unequally painful austerity solutions which have dominated global economic governance since.