Economists and the End of Empire, 1905-35

Economists at the End of Empire demonstrates how economists impacted one of the most turbulent of periods, the early twentieth century. The book spans the three decades, 1905 to 1935, a time of intense change, covering late imperialism, colonial build-up, an arms race, pre-war rebellions, the tragedy of war, the influenza epidemic, peace treaties, armed occupations, hyper-inflation, civil wars, revolutions, nationalist republics, unemployment, the end of empires, and the birth of dictatorships. The book explores the roles of eight selected economists at the heart of the events in the Indian Raj, the German Second Reich, the Ottoman Empire, Czarist Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Japan's Asian Empire, and Imperial China. In each case we see the struggle to survive the end of empire through the eyes of a key economist. Finally, we see the League of Nations offering internationalist alternatives to empire, against the backdrop of one surviving (but fading) empire - the British. The economists came from different cultures and lived very different lives. Some of them were successful in making the post-war countries better places to live, others paid heavily, being executed for their views.