ABSTRACT
Benjamin J. Cohen’s International Political Economy: An Intellectual History is a remarkably admirable book. Its organisation around the intellectual biographies of seven of the field’s indisputable leaders succeeds in making what could have been a very dry story unusually engaging. The clarity, perceptivity and graciousness of each of these biographies prepare the reader to be well-disposed to Cohen’s summary of what IPE has learned and his own conclusions about what the field should do next. Moreover, Cohen’s argument for those, largely methodological, conclusions is convincing in and of itself. It is an argument that most readers would accept even without Cohen’s demonstrated goodwill toward all of his ‘Magnificent Seven’ and his acute understanding of each of their contributions: ‘American’ IPE has much to learn ‘from the British side’s broad multidisciplinarity’ and its greater scope, something needed ‘to combat [the American field’s] shrinkage of horizons that has been so noticeable in recent years’. The ‘British’, on the other hand, have something to learn from the Americans’ more steadfast attempt to ‘bring consistency and replicability to theoretical analysis’. Yet, for all its strengths, Cohen’s book does not provide the definitive history of the field. Since 1989, the International Studies Association’s IPE Section (the second-oldest professional organisation in the field1) has awarded a prize to a ‘distinguished scholar’ in the field. The list of those 21 awardees, and the content of the annual roundtables that have honoured them, tell a different story than the one recounted in Cohen’s History. All but one of Cohen’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ are here. The late Charles Kindleberger died in 2003, two years before the last of the Seven was honoured, but there are 11 other scholars who were also honoured before the last of the Seven. There are some patterns and perhaps some ready explanations for those that Cohen does not include. He himself is on the ISA list and the graciousness and modesty that Cohen displays throughout the book explains that oversight. Perhaps less immediately explicable is the fact that, among the remaining 10, there are two sociologists, Wallerstein and Cardoso, although none is included
among Cohen’s Seven.2 Similarly, there are four economists among the early ISA awardees (Frank, Hirschmann Amin and Vernon) and only one among the Seven.3
