Review of Helleiner, E. (2021) The Neomercantalists: a global intellectual history

Abstract

When I spotted this new book, I just had to go read it, right away. It is one of those books that you know will make a splash. ‘This is not a book I planned to write,’ the author says in the preface. It is a book he had to write. Researching intellectual histories in International Political Economy (IPE), Helleiner discovered that a book on the intellectual history of neomercantilism was lacking – so he wrote it. Prominent scholars of IPE have characterised it as having three leading ideologies: economic liberalism, Marxism and mercantilism, but the latter has been given less attention than its competitors. One may have been forgiven for being less well-read in that tradition when empirical trends were moving increasingly in a more liberal direction. However, in light of changes to the international liberal world order, and with the rise of nations whose leaders advance more protectionist policies (indeed with the US having had a president who was openly flirting with a reorientation away from liberalism towards more protectionism), students of IPE really need to go back to basics and study some of the origins of ideologies that are resurfacing today.