Marketing Sovereign Promises

Reviews / Votes

'Seventeenth-century British public finance stands at the intersection of several fields of scholarship - economics, political science, and history - and research on it lies at the foundation of contemporary political economy. In this important work, Gary W. Cox revisits the topic and offers an interpretation of his own. The book is pure Cox: deeply researched, closely argued, and profound - political economy done right.' Robert H. Bates, Harvard University, Massachusetts 'This is a major contribution to institutional economics, the application of those methods to understanding British political development, the comparative history of fiscal constitutions, and an interesting extension of arguments about the Industrial Revolution.' Michael Braddick, Sheffield University 'Cox combines attention to history with carefully laid out models of political economy to understand just how England arrived at limited government. This is the most important book in historical political economy in the last decade.' Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, California Institute of Technology 'Cox provides us with an important new analysis of a critical historical episode, the growth of parliamentary responsibility in Britain, its economic consequences, and the diffusion of this practice to other countries. He adds greatly to our understanding of how the modern state came to be.' David Stasavage, New York University 'Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.' B. B. Andrew, Choice