Globalists

While most other work on neoliberalism has understandably centered the influence of the Chicago School, Slobodian instead focuses on the relatively overlooked so-called "Geneva School," including Hayek and other early neoliberal thinkers. The account of that school's evolution and influence across the decades is fascinating and disturbing, illustrating just how overtly racist and colonial the aims of neoliberalism's boosters were. By espousing "neutral" targets and by explicitly deriding democracy, they aimed to create a framework that would re-entrench the white, privileged class.

The tone of this book will be familiar to those who read modern philosophical or critical studies work, but it certainly comes off as pretentious and unnatural (if you drink each time you read "imaginaries" you will black out after a few chapters). Still, overall the book is extremely well researched and adds significantly to the scholarship into the history of neoliberalism. Highly recommend

Excellent book. Quinn Slobodian is obviously a talented and thorough historian. Although his sympathies do not lie with his subjects, he always gives them and their philosophies a fair hearing. I found the discussion of the birth of the WTO (World Trade Organization) to be interesting but lacking. Chalk this up to that story being somewhat outside of the book's remit, which is to discuss the birth of neoliberalism, rather than its flowering.