Writing the History of Neoliberalism: A Comment

Abstract This series of comments brings together four historians of neoliberalism, each of whom focuses on a different part of the world but whose work has implications that are transnational if not global. Quinn Slobodian reconstructs the rise of the category of neoliberalism among historians and identifies the different paths of inquiry it is generating. Priya Lal, offering an Africanist’s perspective, moves beyond the reduction of the neoliberal narrative of the continent to one of linear declension and abjection by way of structural adjustment to show continuities from the colonial era to early independence. Gary Gerstle, an Americanist by training, offers a macro take on the move from a Keynesian and social democratic order to a neoliberal one while insisting we attend to the diverse ways policies and elite neoliberal ideas are taken up by populations for whom promises of freedom may mean something different from what intellectuals intended. Finally, Tehila Sasson, a historian of modern Britain and the world, explores the left-wing features of what has come to be called neoliberalism, insisting we keep a keen eye out for unintended consequences and unlikely origins. Together, the comment offers a satellite’s eye view of a subfield reaching maturity.