When István Hont died in 2013, the world lost a giant of intellectual history. A leader of the Cambridge School of Political Thought, Hont argued passionately for a global-historical approach to political ideas. To better understand the development of liberalism, he looked not only to the works of great thinkers but also to their reception and use amid revolution and interstate competition. His innovative program of study culminated in the landmark 2005 book Jealousy of Trade, which explores the birth of economic nationalism and other social effects of expanding eighteenth-century markets. Markets, Morals, Politics brings together a celebrated cast of Hont’s contemporaries to assess his influence, ideas, and methods.

Richard Tuck, John Pocock, John Dunn, Raymond Geuss, Gareth Stedman Jones, Michael Sonenscher, John Robertson, Keith Tribe, Pasquale Pasquino, and Peter N. Miller contribute original essays on themes Hont treated with penetrating insight: the politics of commerce, debt, and luxury; the morality of markets; and economic limits on state power. The authors delve into questions about the relationship between states and markets, politics and economics, through examinations of key Enlightenment and pre-Enlightenment figures in context—Hobbes, Rousseau, Spinoza, and many others. The contributors also add depth to Hont’s lifelong, if sometimes veiled, engagement with Marx.

The result is a work of interpretation that does justice to Hont’s influence while developing its own provocative and illuminating arguments. Markets, Morals, Politics will be a valuable companion to readers of Hont and anyone concerned with political economy and the history of ideas.

Markets, Morals, Politics is a first-rate collection by contributors who are, without exception, among the masters of their craft. -- Christopher Brooke, University of Cambridge
An excellent and timely anthology given the current rise of economic nationalism. -- J. S. Taylor * Choice *

Béla Kapossy is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Lausanne. Isaac Nakhimovsky is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Yale University. Sophus A. Reinert is Marvin Bower Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. Richard Whatmore is Chair of Modern History in the School of History at the University of St Andrews. Peter N. Miller is Dean and Professor at the Bard Graduate Center. Richard Tuck is Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government, Harvard University. Keith Tribe is a leading authority on Weber, a noted historian of economic and social thought, and an accomplished translator. Michael Sonenscher is a Fellow of King's College, University of Cambridge. Gareth Stedman Jones is Professor of the History of Ideas at Queen Mary University of London and Director of the Centre for History and Economics at the University of Cambridge. Raymond Geuss is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His books include Changing the Subject, Reality and Its Dreams, and Who Needs a World View?