{"product_id":"commerce-and-the-commonwealth-andrew-dilley-9780198807544","title":"Commerce and the Commonwealth: Business Association, Political Culture, and Economic Governance, 1886-1975","description":"The history of the Commonwealth of Nations has been subject to limited scholarly enquiry, confined to a focus on inter-governmental relations and divorced from the lively historiographies on the economics and business of the British Empire. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSeeking to fill these gaps, \u003cem\u003eCommerce and the Commonwealth\u003c\/em\u003e presents a revisionist history of the intertwined political and economic histories of the British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. From the 1880s, a political and economic configuration \u003cem\u003ewithin\u003c\/em\u003e the British empire, the Empire-Commonwealth, played a powerful and distinctive role in the business of empire. Incoherently conceived, the Empire-Commonwealth centred on the UK and old dominions, neglecting and marginalizing the remainder of the empire. This Empire-Commonwealth ultimately gave way to, and folded into, the post-colonial Commonwealth of Nations--but continued to play important economic roles until the British Empire's collapse after World War II. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEschewing state-focused approaches, \u003cem\u003eCommerce and the Commonwealth\u003c\/em\u003e tracks the history of the Empire-Commonwealth and Commonwealth of Nations through its business associations, and especially chambers of commerce which organized at imperial and then Commonwealth levels from 1886 to 1975. These associations, framed by a distinct Empire-Commonwealth political culture, sought to shape a wide spectrum of economic policy areas. Through these associations, the book offers a fresh account of the pan-imperial debate on imperial preference and explores other areas of imperial political economy including law, currency, transport and communications, emigration, defence, and taxation. It establishes the layered and subtle existence of tangible economic governance notwithstanding the 'ever closer disunion' of the UK and dominions that lay at the Empire-Commonwealth's core. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe result is a wide-ranging and revisionist history of an under-studied element of the history of the British Empire that will be important reading for all those interested in modern British history, economic history, the history of empire, and the history of the Commonwealth and its legacies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Andrew Dilley\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0198807546\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780198807544\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/06\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 416\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Andrew Dilley","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47637405401343,"sku":"9780198807544","price":155.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_dd896526-d16d-4e91-8f33-d85bd8e920c3.jpg?v=1765115994","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/commerce-and-the-commonwealth-andrew-dilley-9780198807544","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}