This is the first book of its kind to tell the story of the diplomacy that has made the international trading system what it is today. It reveals how three major transformations over the past two centuries in how and why trade diplomacy is done have shaped the way goods, services, capital and labour cross borders, as buyers and sellers meet in the global marketplace. Geoffrey Allen Pigman takes readers on a journey that begins with the intimately linked origins of diplomacy and international trade in ancient history. The narrative explores the tariff negotiations that first liberalized international trade in the nineteenth century, the emergence and growth of institutions like the European Union and the World Trade Organization, and the recent rapid explosion in the diplomacy of trade dispute resolution. Readers will encounter trader-diplomats on the Silk Road, African-European slave trade diplomacy, and the greatest of trade diplomats: Richard Cobden, Michel Chevalier, and Cordell Hull. In his provocative conclusion, Allen argues that, if it is to remain effective as a venue for the globe's trade diplomacy, the WTO must reform itself to become more like the EU.
