BLOOD AND TREASURE

Economics may sound dull, but this is mostly about war.

Journalist and broadcaster Weldon, author of Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The Surprising Story of Britain’s Economy From Boom to Bust and Back Again, emphasizes that economics explains human behavior well beyond simple money and trade. He writes that the first states were built by “violence specialists.” After the agricultural revolution some humans realized that farming was hard work and stealing from farmers was easier. This is Weldon’s introduction to Vikings, who took robbery to a new level. European nations sometimes fought them off; others paid them off. This sounds cowardly but turned out to be a good tactic. Flush with wealth, Vikings lost interest in returning to impoverished Scandinavia, where there was little to buy, and spent it on the spot, settling and eventually ruling many areas in Europe, England included. The ultimate violence specialists were Mongols, nomads from the Eurasian Steppe, who, under Genghis Khan, conquered an empire so large that he can be considered the father of globalization. Readers will quickly learn that this is not a seamless account, but 17 isolated yet delightful chapters recount signal events in war economics down to the present day. Again and again, sensible decisions were no such thing, and irrational policies succeeded. Having defeated France in the Seven Years War, Britain had a choice between acquiring Canada or the rich, tiny French Caribbean sugar island: Guadeloupe. It chose Canada, which turned out disastrously. Everyone praises Russian Premiere Khrushchev for ending Stalin’s murderous paranoia, but staying alive was one of few motivations in the clunky peacetime Soviet economy, where patronage networks and corruption soon thrived. Many chapters are only distantly related to economics but no less entertaining. The Luftwaffe showered medals and publicity on successful fighter pilots, but it turns out that fighter pilots are already fiercely competitive, and these rewards encouraged excessive, often suicidal, risk-taking.

An ingenious juxtaposition.