JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT626 But there is a more substantial worry about the unkept promise of the book. Putting emphasis on practice in order to get away from normative methodology is one thing, but the emphasis on practice in the history of science also bears witness to another suspicion: that scientists lack a language to describe what they do; self-representations of scientists are misleading, as they are just like musicians not trained in doing so. While Maas does a relatively good job in overcoming normative methodology, he still shares much of the language that economists themselves use when talking about their work in controversies. Questions regarding the historical nature of economic method- ology are thus diffi cult to even pose (do controversies aim at representing economic practices, or rather at changing them? Under which historical conditions are methods contestable and contested in the fi rst place?). The reason why Maas does not pose such questions might be that he lacks a historical theory as a source of a different language. Claiming the label of “historical epistemology” (p. 4), what he does is in fact not more than factual history of methods. But even the most conservative philosophers of sci- ence have never questioned the mere fact that methods changed. Just as philosophical epistemology gives an explanation of why one scientifi c theory is superior to another, historical epistemology, according to the understanding of this reader, should give reasons why this or that regime of knowledge was appealing to historical actors at a specifi c moment of time. In short, this is a charming and short introduction to economic methodology that calls for more research to re-appropriate the standard body of knowledge of this fi eld. As in an Old Amsterdam cheese, there remain many holes to be fi lled in the historical epistemology of economics. Perhaps in future years, we will read more by Harro Maas, then written with a Swissfranco touch, but probably still with a Dutch accent. Till Düppe Université du Québec à Montréal REFERENCES Maas , Harro . 2011 . “Sorting Things Out: The Economist as an Armchair Observer.” In Lorraine Daston and Elizabeth Lunbeck , eds., Histories of Scientifi c Observation . Chicago : University of Chicago Press , pp. 206 – 229 . ——— . 2012 . “Questions of Scale in Economic Laboratory Experiments.” Revue de Philosophie Économique 13 ( 1 ): 103 – 125 . Paul Oslington , ed., The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Economics ( New York : Oxford University Press , 2014 ), pp. 656 , $142.50, hardcover. ISBN 978-0-19-972971-5 . doi: 10.1017/S1053837215000528 In The Handbook of Christianity and Economics , Paul Oslington has achieved the commendable feat of bringing the seemingly different areas of economics and Christian theology in dialogue with eac ...

1. JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT626
But there is a more substantial worry about the unkept promise
of the book. Putting
emphasis on practice in order to get away from normative
methodology is one thing,
but the emphasis on practice in the history of science also bears
witness to another
suspicion: that scientists lack a language to describe what they
do; self-representations
of scientists are misleading, as they are just like musicians not
trained in doing so.
While Maas does a relatively good job in overcoming normative
methodology, he still
shares much of the language that economists themselves use
when talking about their
work in controversies. Questions regarding the historical nature
of economic method-
ology are thus diffi cult to even pose (do controversies aim at
representing economic
practices, or rather at changing them? Under which historical
conditions are methods
contestable and contested in the fi rst place?). The reason why
Maas does not pose such
questions might be that he lacks a historical theory as a source
of a different language.
Claiming the label of “historical epistemology” (p. 4), what he
does is in fact not more
than factual history of methods. But even the most conservative
philosophers of sci-
ence have never questioned the mere fact that methods changed.
Just as philosophical

2. epistemology gives an explanation of why one scientifi c theory
is superior to another,
historical epistemology, according to the understanding of this
reader, should give
reasons why this or that regime of knowledge was appealing to
historical actors at a
specifi c moment of time.
In short, this is a charming and short introduction to economic
methodology
that calls for more research to re-appropriate the standard body
of knowledge of
this fi eld. As in an Old Amsterdam cheese, there remain many
holes to be fi lled in the
historical epistemology of economics. Perhaps in future years,
we will read more
by Harro Maas, then written with a Swissfranco touch, but
probably still with a
Dutch accent.
Till Düppe
Université du Québec à Montréal
REFERENCES
Maas , Harro . 2011 . “Sorting Things Out: The
Economist as an Armchair Observer.” In Lorraine Daston
and Elizabeth Lunbeck , eds., Histories of Scientifi c
Observation . Chicago : University of Chicago
Press , pp. 206 – 229 .
——— . 2012 . “Questions of Scale in Economic Laboratory
Experiments.” Revue de Philosophie
Économique 13 ( 1 ): 103 – 125 .
Paul Oslington , ed., The Oxford Handbook of

3. Christianity and Economics ( New York :
Oxford University Press , 2014 ), pp. 656 , $142.50,
hardcover. ISBN 978-0-19-972971-5 .
doi: 10.1017/S1053837215000528
In The Handbook of Christianity and Economics , Paul
Oslington has achieved the
commendable feat of bringing the seemingly different areas of
economics and Christian
theology in dialogue with each other, creating the space for an
interdisciplinary
discussion.
at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University
of Victoria Libraries, on 20 Mar 2020 at 07:24:54, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
https://www.cambridge.org/core
BOOK REVIEWS 627
The aim of this handbook is twofold: to survey the new
interdisciplinary fi eld of
economics and Christianity, and to show that these two
seemingly different academic
areas are interrelated. Interconnection between economic
activity and Christian faith
is the primary focus of this handbook; included are thirty-three
articles sourced from
various contexts to describe this important but rarely researched
topic.

4. The organization of the articles of various discipline-specifi c
approaches, denomi-
nations, and historical backgrounds into categories is itself the
result of an important
process of interpretation, which is infl uenced by the editor’s
own understanding of the
interdisciplinary relationship between mainstream economics
and Christian theology.
I concentrate on the structure of the handbook not because each
chapter is not worth
reviewing, but because the analysis of its structure helps to
evaluate the aim of this
handbook. Each of these articles is worthy of a detailed review
in its own right, but,
given time and space constraints, only a brief overview is
offered here.
The thirty-three articles included in the handbook have been
broadly sourced. Written
by authors of varied backgrounds with different methodologies,
they are divided into
fi ve categories: historical relationship; economic thoughts of
the main Christian
denominations; Christianity’s role for economic development;
economic analysis of
region; and interdisciplinary topics such as justice, happiness,
usury, human nature,
gender, and poverty.
The fi rst eight chapters are collected in Part 1 under the title
“Historical Relationships
between Economics and Christian Theology,” and include
historical explorations from
various perspectives. The articles included show that the
relationship between eco-

5. nomics and theology is confi rmed in various historical aspects
such as the Christian
scripture (M. Douglas Meeks), the Church Fathers (Hennie
Stander), Scholastic eco-
nomics (Odd Langholm), Italy in the eighteenth century
(Luigino Bruni and Stefano
Zamagni), France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
(Gilbert Faccarello),
Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (A. M. C.
Waterman), Europe from the
nineteenth century (Pedro Teixeira and Antonio Almodovar),
and after the Separation
(Ross B. Emmett).
Those historical surveys, however, only describe the possibility
of the interrelationship
between economic behaviors and religious faith from the ethical
point of view of each
respective era. They do not explain how economics and
theology are interrelated.
For example, in chapter 1, Meeks describes how biblical
economics is based on
abundance, hospitality, and mercy, in contrast to the axioms of
mainstream economics,
such as artifi cial scarcity, comparative advantage, and
calculation of cost-benefi t.
Given this, the question that follows is: why bother connecting
these two diametrically
opposed areas at all? In order to link economic activity and
religious faith, more dis-
cussion is required; an historical approach alone is not suffi
cient. Historical surveys of
the relationship between economics and theology show that
there may be a close rela-
tionship between economics and theology. Yet, how these

6. related? That is a different
question.
Part 2 begins to answer this question. Titled “Contemporary
Theological Economics,”
it includes eight articles, addressing perspectives such as
Roman Catholic (Andrew
Yuengert), Anglican (Kim Hawtrey), Eastern Orthodox (Daniel
P. Payne), Reformed
(Bob Goudzwaard and Roel Jongeneel), Theonomy (Edd Noell),
Anabaptist
(Jim Halteman), Pentecostal (Shane Clifton), and interface and
integration (J. David
Richardson). These articles deal directly, from various
denominational perspectives,
at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University
of Victoria Libraries, on 20 Mar 2020 at 07:24:54, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
https://www.cambridge.org/core
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT628
with the question of how different theologies infl uence
economic behaviors in the
market.
Part 2’s methodology of analyzing the interrelationship
between economic and religious
faith in terms of denomination-specifi c economic behavior

7. offers a clearer explanation
of the interrelationship in question than the historical approach
of Part 1, in that there
is a more concrete presentation of the relationship. However,
the question of clarifying
the relationship between economics and theology, in more
substantial conceptual
terms beyond well-established characteristics, remains. Part 2
shows that given the
fact that each religious denomination has its own economic
characteristics, the two
areas are thus interrelated. However, it does not necessarily
show how economic
activity is integrated into religious faith, or vice versa.
Part 3, “Christianity, Capitalism and Development,” deals with
this question, asserting
that religious faith has an impact on economic life. The fi ve
articles that are included
encompass a broad range of perspectives, addressing Max
Weber’s theological eco-
nomics (Max L. Stackhouse), economic religion and
environmental religion (Robert
H. Nelson), development in the global South (Peter S. Heslam),
international development
(Katherine Marshall), and global economic order (Paul S.
Williams). According to the
articles of Part 3, religious faith infl uences economic activity.
In contrast, Part 4 deals with the question of how economics
and theology are inter-
related in the opposite direction. It shows that economic motive
impacts religious ac-
tivity. Titled “Economic Analysis of Religion,” six articles are
included: church models
(Robert Mochrie), religious schism and switching (T. Randolf

8. Beard, Robert B.
Ekelund Jr., George S. Ford, and Robert P. Tollison), spiritual
capital (Theodore
Roosevelt Malloch), religious labor markets (Ian Smith),
regulation of religious mar-
kets (Charles M. North), and behavioral economics of religion
(Jonathan H. W. Tan).
It’s important to note here that Part 3 and Part 4 clearly
illustrate the relationship
between economics and theology as a mutual, two-way
relationship. This in turn high-
lights and further supports the arguments presented in parts 1
and 2 of the handbook,
illuminating the place of these specifi c inquiries in the broader
discussion of the rela-
tionship between economic activity and religious faith.
Part 5 is titled “Interdisciplinary Exchanges.” The title
recognizes the fact that the
concepts addressed in the six articles of this section—justice
(Albino Barrera), happi-
ness (Ben Cooper), usury (Ian Harper and Lachlan Smirl),
human nature (Gordon
Menzies and Donald Hay), gender (Carrie A. Miles), and
poverty (Craig M. Gay)—
require analytical tools and observational skills beyond that of a
perspective limited to
a single discipline. In this sense, this section represents the
mutual relationship between
economics and theology, and the need for interdisciplinary
perspectives in addressing
current social issues.
While this in itself is a valuable contribution, the
interdisciplinary dialogue of the

9. handbook has overlooked an important point. That is, economics
and theology have
fundamentally different understandings of human nature and the
attributes of God. In
order for the interdisciplinary fi eld of economics and theology
to thrive, it is impera-
tive that we develop a common foundation, from which we can
conduct a fruitful
conversation between seemingly dissimilar disciplines.
This volume offers a survey of current thinking and research
into the area of the
relationship between economics and theology. The various
approaches utilized in this
interdisciplinary discussion include historical, denominational,
Christian, economic,
at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University
of Victoria Libraries, on 20 Mar 2020 at 07:24:54, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
https://www.cambridge.org/core
BOOK REVIEWS 629
and thematic perspectives. This handbook is surely a landmark
in the interdisciplinary
research fi eld of economics and Christianity, and a valuable
guide for those who are
interested in the dialogue between economics and theology.

10. Yong-Sun Yang
Alphacrucis College
Jacob Viner , The Customs Union Issue , edited
and with an introduction by Paul Oslington
( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2014 ), pp. 256 , $39.95.
ISBN 978-0199-75612-4 .
doi: 10.1017/S105383721500053X
The republication of any signifi cant past contribution to
the fi eld of economics is an
occasion of joy for historians of economics because it means
new scholars will fi nd
themselves engaged with the insights of a classic text. Jacob
Viner’s text is a great
example, because its discussion of the discriminatory nature of
preferential trade
agreements has shaped much of the debate over the past fi fty
years, even though refer-
ence to the text itself dropped away by the 1970s. Comments
such as “It is a serious
mistake, although a widely prevalent one, to transfer from the fi
eld of free trade in
general, where it is probably true, to the fi eld of preferential
trade relations …, where
there is no reason at all to believe that it is true, the ancient
proposition that the removal
of barriers to trade works powerfully for peace and amity” (p.
129) sound even more
prescient today than fi fty years ago. Almost everywhere we
look, regional trade
accords and other forms of economic integration are fraught
with tension and discord.
For the historian, however, the occasion also gives an
opportunity to consider not

11. only the book’s infl uence, but also its original context and
purpose. Paul Oslington’s
introduction covers much of this ground quite well. Viner’s
interest in preferential
trade arrangements, and customs unions in particular, emerged
from his background of
working with Frank Taussig at Harvard and at the US Trade
Commission. At fi rst, he
looked favorably on customs unions, thinking them a step
toward freer trade, espe-
cially in the context of trade protection all around. But a
consulting assignment with
the province of Manitoba gave Viner the opportunity to examine
how preferential trade
arrangements within his native land worked to the benefi t of
some Canadian provinces
and not others, with potentially substantial welfare losses.
Oslington also walks through
the reception of Viner’s argument in the trade literature, and
provides a reasonable
assessment of his contribution.
One thing Oslington does not look at in his introduction is the
contribution of
Viner’s treatise to our evaluation of the Chicago School. I was
surprised, given the
context he does provide, that Oslington did not mention that this
text was written over
the span of time during Viner’s decision to leave Chicago and
move to Princeton. Since
much of the book was written before he left, we can consider it
a contribution to the
trade literature of the Chicago economists. And what a good
example of the early
Chicago School’s work it is. The focus of attention is on the
way in which the

12. social organization of economic activity is effected by a specifi
c set of trade policies,
with Marshallian price theory as the framework for evaluation.
The nineteenth-century
proponents of laissez-faire had lost both politically and
intellectually to protectionism,
at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University
of Victoria Libraries, on 20 Mar 2020 at 07:24:54, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
https://www.cambridge.org/core
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT626
But there is a more substantial worry about the unkept promise
of the book. Putting
emphasis on practice in order to get away from normative
methodology is one thing,
but the emphasis on practice in the history of science also bears
witness to another
suspicion: that scientists lack a language to describe what they
do; self-representations
of scientists are misleading, as they are just like musicians not
trained in doing so.
While Maas does a relatively good job in overcoming normative
methodology, he still
shares much of the language that economists themselves use
when talking about their
work in controversies. Questions regarding the historical nature

13. of economic method-
ology are thus diffi cult to even pose (do controversies aim at
representing economic
practices, or rather at changing them? Under which historical
conditions are methods
contestable and contested in the fi rst place?). The reason why
Maas does not pose such
questions might be that he lacks a historical theory as a source
of a different language.
Claiming the label of “historical epistemology” (p. 4), what he
does is in fact not more
than factual history of methods. But even the most conservative
philosophers of sci-
ence have never questioned the mere fact that methods changed.
Just as philosophical
epistemology gives an explanation of why one scientifi c theory
is superior to another,
historical epistemology, according to the understanding of this
reader, should give
reasons why this or that regime of knowledge was appealing to
historical actors at a
specifi c moment of time.
In short, this is a charming and short introduction to economic
methodology
that calls for more research to re-appropriate the standard body
of knowledge of
this fi eld. As in an Old Amsterdam cheese, there remain many
holes to be fi lled in the
historical epistemology of economics. Perhaps in future years,
we will read more
by Harro Maas, then written with a Swissfranco touch, but
probably still with a
Dutch accent.
Till Düppe

14. Université du Québec à Montréal
REFERENCES
Maas , Harro . 2011 . “Sorting Things Out: The
Economist as an Armchair Observer.” In Lorraine Daston
and Elizabeth Lunbeck , eds., Histories of Scientifi c
Observation . Chicago : University of Chicago
Press , pp. 206 – 229 .
——— . 2012 . “Questions of Scale in Economic Laboratory
Experiments.” Revue de Philosophie
Économique 13 ( 1 ): 103 – 125 .
Paul Oslington , ed., The Oxford Handbook of
Christianity and Economics ( New York :
Oxford University Press , 2014 ), pp. 656 , $142.50,
hardcover. ISBN 978-0-19-972971-5 .
doi: 10.1017/S1053837215000528
In The Handbook of Christianity and Economics , Paul
Oslington has achieved the
commendable feat of bringing the seemingly different areas of
economics and Christian
theology in dialogue with each other, creating the space for an
interdisciplinary
discussion.
at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University
of Victoria Libraries, on 20 Mar 2020 at 07:24:54, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528

15. https://www.cambridge.org/core
BOOK REVIEWS 627
The aim of this handbook is twofold: to survey the new
interdisciplinary fi eld of
economics and Christianity, and to show that these two
seemingly different academic
areas are interrelated. Interconnection between economic
activity and Christian faith
is the primary focus of this handbook; included are thirty-three
articles sourced from
various contexts to describe this important but rarely researched
topic.
The organization of the articles of various discipline-specifi c
approaches, denomi-
nations, and historical backgrounds into categories is itself the
result of an important
process of interpretation, which is infl uenced by the editor’s
own understanding of the
interdisciplinary relationship between mainstream economics
and Christian theology.
I concentrate on the structure of the handbook not because each
chapter is not worth
reviewing, but because the analysis of its structure helps to
evaluate the aim of this
handbook. Each of these articles is worthy of a detailed review
in its own right, but,
given time and space constraints, only a brief overview is
offered here.
The thirty-three articles included in the handbook have been
broadly sourced. Written
by authors of varied backgrounds with different methodologies,

16. they are divided into
fi ve categories: historical relationship; economic thoughts of
the main Christian
denominations; Christianity’s role for economic development;
economic analysis of
region; and interdisciplinary topics such as justice, happiness,
usury, human nature,
gender, and poverty.
The fi rst eight chapters are collected in Part 1 under the title
“Historical Relationships
between Economics and Christian Theology,” and include
historical explorations from
various perspectives. The articles included show that the
relationship between eco-
nomics and theology is confi rmed in various historical aspects
such as the Christian
scripture (M. Douglas Meeks), the Church Fathers (Hennie
Stander), Scholastic eco-
nomics (Odd Langholm), Italy in the eighteenth century
(Luigino Bruni and Stefano
Zamagni), France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
(Gilbert Faccarello),
Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (A. M. C.
Waterman), Europe from the
nineteenth century (Pedro Teixeira and Antonio Almodovar),
and after the Separation
(Ross B. Emmett).
Those historical surveys, however, only describe the possibility
of the interrelationship
between economic behaviors and religious faith from the ethical
point of view of each
respective era. They do not explain how economics and
theology are interrelated.

17. For example, in chapter 1, Meeks describes how biblical
economics is based on
abundance, hospitality, and mercy, in contrast to the axioms of
mainstream economics,
such as artifi cial scarcity, comparative advantage, and
calculation of cost-benefi t.
Given this, the question that follows is: why bother connecting
these two diametrically
opposed areas at all? In order to link economic activity and
religious faith, more dis-
cussion is required; an historical approach alone is not suffi
cient. Historical surveys of
the relationship between economics and theology show that
there may be a close rela-
tionship between economics and theology. Yet, how these
related? That is a different
question.
Part 2 begins to answer this question. Titled “Contemporary
Theological Economics,”
it includes eight articles, addressing perspectives such as
Roman Catholic (Andrew
Yuengert), Anglican (Kim Hawtrey), Eastern Orthodox (Daniel
P. Payne), Reformed
(Bob Goudzwaard and Roel Jongeneel), Theonomy (Edd Noell),
Anabaptist
(Jim Halteman), Pentecostal (Shane Clifton), and interface and
integration (J. David
Richardson). These articles deal directly, from various
denominational perspectives,
at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University
of Victoria Libraries, on 20 Mar 2020 at 07:24:54, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available

18. https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
https://www.cambridge.org/core
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT628
with the question of how different theologies infl uence
economic behaviors in the
market.
Part 2’s methodology of analyzing the interrelationship
between economic and religious
faith in terms of denomination-specifi c economic behavior
offers a clearer explanation
of the interrelationship in question than the historical approach
of Part 1, in that there
is a more concrete presentation of the relationship. However,
the question of clarifying
the relationship between economics and theology, in more
substantial conceptual
terms beyond well-established characteristics, remains. Part 2
shows that given the
fact that each religious denomination has its own economic
characteristics, the two
areas are thus interrelated. However, it does not necessarily
show how economic
activity is integrated into religious faith, or vice versa.
Part 3, “Christianity, Capitalism and Development,” deals with
this question, asserting
that religious faith has an impact on economic life. The fi ve
articles that are included
encompass a broad range of perspectives, addressing Max
Weber’s theological eco-

19. nomics (Max L. Stackhouse), economic religion and
environmental religion (Robert
H. Nelson), development in the global South (Peter S. Heslam),
international development
(Katherine Marshall), and global economic order (Paul S.
Williams). According to the
articles of Part 3, religious faith infl uences economic activity.
In contrast, Part 4 deals with the question of how economics
and theology are inter-
related in the opposite direction. It shows that economic motive
impacts religious ac-
tivity. Titled “Economic Analysis of Religion,” six articles are
included: church models
(Robert Mochrie), religious schism and switching (T. Randolf
Beard, Robert B.
Ekelund Jr., George S. Ford, and Robert P. Tollison), spiritual
capital (Theodore
Roosevelt Malloch), religious labor markets (Ian Smith),
regulation of religious mar-
kets (Charles M. North), and behavioral economics of religion
(Jonathan H. W. Tan).
It’s important to note here that Part 3 and Part 4 clearly
illustrate the relationship
between economics and theology as a mutual, two-way
relationship. This in turn high-
lights and further supports the arguments presented in parts 1
and 2 of the handbook,
illuminating the place of these specifi c inquiries in the broader
discussion of the rela-
tionship between economic activity and religious faith.
Part 5 is titled “Interdisciplinary Exchanges.” The title
recognizes the fact that the
concepts addressed in the six articles of this section—justice

20. (Albino Barrera), happi-
ness (Ben Cooper), usury (Ian Harper and Lachlan Smirl),
human nature (Gordon
Menzies and Donald Hay), gender (Carrie A. Miles), and
poverty (Craig M. Gay)—
require analytical tools and observational skills beyond that of a
perspective limited to
a single discipline. In this sense, this section represents the
mutual relationship between
economics and theology, and the need for interdisciplinary
perspectives in addressing
current social issues.
While this in itself is a valuable contribution, the
interdisciplinary dialogue of the
handbook has overlooked an important point. That is, economics
and theology have
fundamentally different understandings of human nature and the
attributes of God. In
order for the interdisciplinary fi eld of economics and theology
to thrive, it is impera-
tive that we develop a common foundation, from which we can
conduct a fruitful
conversation between seemingly dissimilar disciplines.
This volume offers a survey of current thinking and research
into the area of the
relationship between economics and theology. The various
approaches utilized in this
interdisciplinary discussion include historical, denominational,
Christian, economic,
at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University
of Victoria Libraries, on 20 Mar 2020 at 07:24:54, subject to the

21. Cambridge Core terms of use, available
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837215000528
https://www.cambridge.org/core
BOOK REVIEWS 629
and thematic perspectives. This handbook is surely a landmark
in the interdisciplinary
research fi eld of economics and Christianity, and a valuable
guide for those who are
interested in the dialogue between economics and theology.
Yong-Sun Yang
Alphacrucis College
Jacob Viner , The Customs Union Issue , edited
and with an introduction by Paul Oslington
( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2014 ), pp. 256 , $39.95.
ISBN 978-0199-75612-4 .
doi: 10.1017/S105383721500053X
The republication of any signifi cant past contribution to
the fi eld of economics is an
occasion of joy for historians of economics because it means
new scholars will fi nd
themselves engaged with the insights of a classic text. Jacob
Viner’s text is a great
example, because its discussion of the discriminatory nature of
preferential trade
agreements has shaped much of the debate over the past fi fty
years, even though refer-
ence to the text itself dropped away by the 1970s. Comments
such as “It is a serious

22. mistake, although a widely prevalent one, to transfer from the fi
eld of free trade in
general, where it is probably true, to the fi eld of preferential
trade relations …, where
there is no reason at all to believe that it is true, the ancient
proposition that the removal
of barriers to trade works powerfully for peace and amity” (p.
129) sound even more
prescient today than fi fty years ago. Almost everywhere we
look, regional trade
accords and other forms of economic integration are fraught
with tension and discord.
For the historian, however, the occasion also gives an
opportunity to consider not
only the book’s infl uence, but also its original context and
purpose. Paul Oslington’s
introduction covers much of this ground quite well. Viner’s
interest in preferential
trade arrangements, and customs unions in particular, emerged
from his background of
working with Frank Taussig at Harvard and at the US Trade
Commission. At fi rst, he
looked favorably on customs unions, thinking them a step
toward freer trade, espe-
cially in the context of trade protection all around. But a
consulting assignment with
the province of Manitoba gave Viner the opportunity to examine
how preferential trade
arrangements within his native land worked to the benefi t of
some Canadian provinces
and not others, with potentially substantial welfare losses.
Oslington also walks through
the reception of Viner’s argument in the trade literature, and
provides a reasonable
assessment of his contribution.

23. One thing Oslington does not look at in his introduction is the
contribution of
Viner’s treatise to our evaluation of the Chicago School. I was
surprised, given the
context he does provide, that Oslington did not mention that this
text was written over
the span of time during Viner’s decision to leave Chicago and
move to Princeton. Since
much of the book was written before he left, we can consider it
a contribution to the
trade literature of the Chicago economists. And what a good
example of the early
Chicago School’s work it is. The focus of attention is on the
way in which the
social organization of economic activity is effected by a specifi
c set of trade policies,
with Marshallian price theory as the framework for evaluation.
The nineteenth-century
proponents of laissez-faire had lost both politically and
intellectually to protectionism,
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