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In the 15th and 16th centuries, Renaissance Italy received a bounty of “goods” from Portuguese trading voyages—fruits of empire that included luxury goods, exotic animals and even enslaved people.
Many historians hold that this imperial “opening up” of the world transformed the way Europeans understood the global.
In this book, K.J.P. Lowe challenges such an assumption, showing that Italians of this era cared more about the possession than the provenance of their newly acquired global goods.
In this book, Stephen Brooks provides a systematic empirical and theoretical examination of how economic factors influence security affairs. Empirically, he analyzes how economic variables of all kinds affect interstate war, terrorism, and civil war; in total, 16 pathways are examined.
Brooks shows that the relationship between economic factors and conflict is complex and multifaceted; discrete economic factors—such as international trade, economic development, and globalized manufacturing, to name a few—are sometimes helpful for promoting peace and stability, but at other times are detrimental.
Brooks also develops a stronger theoretical foundation for guiding future research on the economics-security interaction.
Drawing on Adam Smith, he provides a more complete range of answers to the three key conceptual questions analysts must consider: how economic goals relate to security goals; what economic factors to focus on; and how economic actors influence security policies.
Combining an innovative theoretical understanding with empirical rigor, Brooks’s account will reshape our understanding of the political economy of security.
