Hobson - Multicultural Origins of the Global Economy

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John M. Hobson 2021

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In memoriam:

Tim and Nora Hobson, my life mentors

Yves Laframboise, my alter-life mentor

Lily (L. H. M.) Ling and John Atkinson Hobson, critics of racism, my academic mentors

This book has been thirty-seven years in the making and is the culmination of much that I have learned in that time. It took me on an odyssey that returned me to the second year of my undergraduate studies in Political Economy, when I was first introduced to the original Marxist debate on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. And from there I moved forward in time through my Political Sociology MSc on to my historical sociological PhD years of study and thence into the world of International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy, all the while developing ideas, themes and issues that would come to fruition in this book. There are obviously far too many names that I owe a debt to in the early years, but I remain deeply grateful to Monika Beutel, Alan Hooper, Tom Nossiter, Linda Weiss and Michael Mann.

Moving forward to the last decade I would like to express my sincerest thanks to members of my current Sheffield department who have in so many ways provided help, support and advice to me over the many years that I have spent researching and writing this book. I am privileged to work in a department whose profile in political economy is world leading. From the pioneers of New Political Economy and the original directors of the two world-leading political economy research centres (PERC and subsequently SPERI), Tony Payne and Andrew Gamble, through to its present and equally impressive leadership under Colin Hay and Genevieve LeBaron, as well as numerous and highly impressive members of SPERI including Andrew Baker, Matt Bishop, Graham Harrison, Andy Hindmoor, Scott Lavery, Allister McGregor, Owen Parker, Nicola Phillips, Liam Stanley and Burak Tansel, I have learned a great deal, some of which is contained in this book. I am also most grateful to a number of my IR colleagues for the many conversations, advice and kind support they have provided me, including Ross Bellaby, Ruth Blakeley, Ben Docherty, Adrian Gallagher, Jonna Nyman, Simon Rushton, Lisa Stampnitzky, Joanna Tidy, Joe Turner, Peter Verov ek and, above all, Jonathan Joseph, Burak Tansel and Helen Turton.

Regarding the last five years of intensive research and writing, I want to thank a number of people who provided excellent advice on particular parts of the manuscript: Audrey Alejandro, Genevieve LeBaron, Michelle LeBaron, Burak Tansel, Bryony Vince and Peer Vries. Following on from the tragic passing of Lily (L. H. M.) Ling, Bryony has joined me as co-editor in the Rowman & Littlefield International Book series, Global Dialogues: Non-Eurocentric Visions of the Global . Bryony is following in Lily's giant footsteps so no pressure then! I also feel that this book is in keeping with the core theme of the series that Lily and I set up along with the excellent help provided by Anna Reeve and, more recently, by Dhara Snowden at R&LI. Warm thanks also go to David Blaney and Kaveh Yazdani who read significant chunks of the manuscript and provided timely and invaluable feedback.

Special thanks go to my brilliant PhD student, Zhang Shizhi, with whom I have had the wonderful pleasure of engaging in our shared, quirky interest in China's economic history. I've deeply enjoyed our utterly fascinating and absorbing conversations on the seemingly endless historical ins and outs of China's foreign trade and cotton textile industry in the pre-1911 era. Moreover, his unflinching support and extraordinarily generous help in translating many Chinese books and archival documents that I have relied upon is equally deeply appreciated. Warm thanks also go to Benjamin de Carvalho and Halvard Leira given that parts of the research for this book have been made possible through support from the Privateers and the Sea (EMPRISE) Project at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), funded by the Research Council of Norway through Grant Number 262657.