The World Economy and the Great War

Since the 1990s a group of scholars connected to the National Bureau of Economic Research convincingly presented the nineteenth century as the first great age of global growth and globalization. For them and for many others, World War I marked a decisive break, inaugurating 30 years of deglobalization. We question this common sense view through an appreciative critique in five steps. We offer a narrative sketch in which the war figures as a moment of convulsive and violent realignment endogenous to that history First we revisit arguments for economic causation. Second we open up the black box of the war economy. Third we consider the significance of global, war-induced inflation. Fourth, we introduce projects of world economic ordering. Finally, we argue that the war provoked a new reflexivity about the world economy.