Free trade was one of the most distinctive features of the British state--and of British economic, social, and political life--in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is the first book to explain why free trade was so important, and to examine the reasons for its longevity. Howe covers a crucial century in free trade history, from the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, through the turbulent years of the Tariff Reform debate, to the end...