A collection of 64 essays, written between 2002-2008, primarily about economics (theory versus 'actually existing capitalism' through various topics including economic growth, business cycles, globalization and monopoly power, and political science (theory versus 'actually existing democracy' through various topics including constitutional government, emergency powers, and civil liberties). The geographic focus is the English-speaking nations of the Northern Hemisphere, primarily the U.S. A significant reason for setting this time frame is that it corresponds to a period when the author was experiencing his own 'darkness at noon.'

This monograph is an attempt to understand the symbiotic relationship between politics and economy in India since independence. A few essays are presented to delineate this relationship in simple, non-technical language. But a discerning reader could easily decipher a specific interpretation throughout the text: the process of economic transformation is viewed as a function of the decision makers’ changing calculus of political pay-offs. Indian Political Economy is divided into three phases: (1) Nationalist Political Economy (1947-68); (2) Populist Political Economy (1969-1990) and (3) Competitive Political Economy (1991- ). The grand coalition in the first phase enabled the state to play an interventionist role and to estimate payoffs for the entire country; the minimum-winning coalition in the polarised politics of the second phase played a redistributive game and carefully calculated payoffs of its own supporters only and the uncertainty resulting from a fragmented politics in the third phase did not allow any party to be assured of a winning coalition and, therefore, made it difficult for any political party to predict political payoffs. Economic reforms of the 1990s were the result of this political uncertainty. The radical changes in economic policy transformed contemporary politics. A running theme in these essays is that while political actors face uncertainty in a competitive political economy, the citizens, as consumers of public policies, are further empowered to question, accept or reject any policy initiative. Citizens and groups are able to assert their rights and, if necessary, throw out the non-performers. Rights dominate over welfare in this new policy regime.

The Routledge Handbook of the History of Global Economic Thought offers the first comprehensive overview of the long-run history of economic thought from a truly international perspective. Although globalization has facilitated the spread of ideas between nations, the history of economics has tended to be studied either thematically (by topic), in terms of different currents of thought, or individually (by economist). Work has been published in the past on the economic thought traditions of specific countries, but this pioneering volume is unique in offering a wide-ranging comparative account of the development of economic ideas and philosophies on the international stage. The volume brings together leading experts on the development of economic ideas from across the world in order to offer a truly international comparison of the economics within nation-states. Each author presents a long-term perspective on economics in their region, allowing global patterns in the progress of economic ideas over time to be identified. The specially commissioned chapters cover the vast sweep of the history of economics across five world regions, including Europe (England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy Greece, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, Russia and the Ukraine), the Americas (the USA, Canada, Mexico and Central America, Spanish-Speaking South America, Brazil and the Caribbean), the Middle East (Turkey, Israel, Arab-Islamic Economics, Persia/Iran, North Africa), Africa (West Africa, Southern Africa, Mozambique and Angola), and the Asia-Pacific Region (Australia and New Zealand, China, Southeast Asia, the Asian Tigers, India.) This rigorous, ambitious and highly scholarly volume will be of key interest to students, academics, policy professionals and to interested general readers across the globe.