First published in 1940, this book suggested the basic principles upon which a new international economic order should be built at the end of the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to the possibility of constructing such an international order on the basis of divergent national economic systems – whether liberal or planned, capitalist or socialist. In undertaking this task the author combines theoretical analysis with a description of the immediate pre-war economic situation and writes in a language which is equally accessible to the economist and the layman.

William Mott examines the relationships between economic growth and international conflict in history and theory, developing and analyzing a set of observed empirical modern growth-conflict relationships over long periods, and presenting an explanation of the observations. After introducing the growth-conflict relationship as the unit of analysis, he identifies historical perceptions of the growth-conflict relationship from ancient times through the modern era. Mott offers an alternative theoretical construct for further investigation, and speculates about the impact of these results on orthodox political-economic theory. The results of this work carry powerful implications for national management of foreign direct investment and trade in both home countries and host nations.