A while ago Emma Rothschild wrote a terrific book about Adam Smith, and in particular how his moral philosophy in Moral Sentiments informs his better-known Wealth of Nations. She's followed up that one, Economic Sentiments, with The Inner Life of Empires: An 18th Century History.

It's a tale of early globalisation seen through the lives of one generation of a Scottish family of 11 children, the Johnstones. The book is based on immense research in the archives – the notes run to 150 pages. Their personal stories illustrate the rapid increase in interconnectedness and complexity as the modern capitalist economy began to take shape. The complexity and uncertainty is striking – in a marvellous phrase Rothschild describes it as “the unsettled world of possible empires.” (p129)

I was very struck by how early in the Industrial Revolution distant places and people – especially slaves – began to play a large role in British lives. The Johnstone sons travelled the world, from working for the East India Company in Bengal to owning slave plantations in Grenada and Florida. Their incomes depended to a large degree on overseas activity. This is long before what one normally considers to be the heyday of empire. Also striking is the central role of slavery in creating early globalisation – and the number of black and Indian people there must have been in Britain in the late 18th century.

Another very interesting discussion is the contemporary debate about the nature of the state and public morality as the British empire slowly took shape. The pragmatic deals with local rulers of the early East India Company days had to give way to more formal and regulated relations, with the exercise of state military power and political authority. This sheds light on our own debates about the relations between multinationals and states.

Adam Smith was a friend of one Johnstone son, and the family engaged with the new ideas of political economy in discussing these various rights and wrongs. One used free trade as an argument for the slave trade, they appealed to competition and self-improvement in their activities in Bengal. Two brothers became rich while others had more varied fortunes. And, in another marker of the times, of the 14 children 3 died in infancy, and a majority of the others by their early 40s. Short lives, albeit crammed with world events.

So a fascinating book. The thread of the argument gets submerged in detail in places. I found it hard to keep track of all the siblings, and the line of argument is unclear in the structure of the chapters. Nevertheless, a wealth of insight into early capitalism and – as in her previous book – the moral foundations of the global economy.