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FREE-TRADE IDEOLOGY AND TRANSATLANTIC ABOLITIONISM: A HISTORIOGRAPHY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2015

Marc-William Palen
Marc-William Palen*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Imperial History, University of Exeter; Research Associate in U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Studies Centre, University of Sydney.
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Abstract

This essay seeks to trace the many—and often conflicting—economic ideological interpretations of the transatlantic abolitionist impulse. In particular, it explores the contested relationship between free-trade ideology and transatlantic abolitionism, and highlights the understudied influence of Victorian free-trade ideology within the American abolitionist movement. By bringing together historiographical controversies from the American and British side, the essay calls into question long-standing conceptions regarding the relationship between free trade and abolitionism, and suggests new avenues for research.

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Type
Symposium: American Political Economy From the Age of Jackson to the Civil War
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Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 291 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2015 

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