Christopher Meissner's One From the Many The Global Economy Since 1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. Pages: xv, 330

Meissner—a professor of economics at UC-Davis—accurately subtitled his book The Global Economy Since 1850. After being treated to a quick survey of trade during the many millennia before the modern age, the reader is then immersed in the historical, political, and economic details of the past two hundred years.

Beyond his workmanlike demonstration of the differences that separate today’s global economy from that of 120 years ago, Meissner offers chapters that focus on (among other topics) the international gold standard, the Great Depression, and the Bretton Woods agreement and other post-WWII efforts to prevent the destructive economic nationalism that reigned during the interwar years.

Writing often for a non-specialized audience, yet on several occasions, and without warning, shifting his pitch to his fellow specialists, gives Meissner’s text an uneven feel.

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