Overview
Nicholas Mulder works on the European and international history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His research is concentrated on political and economic history during the period from the 1850s to 1945.
A specialist in the history of geoeconomics, he is the author of two books about the historical development of economic coercion in the global system. The first, The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War (Yale University Press, 2022), a history of the interwar origins of economic sanctions, was awarded the 2024 Paul Birdsall Prize in European military and strategic history by the American Historical Association and the 2023 Stuart L. Bernath Prize for best first book by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. It was named a Best Book of 2022 by Foreign Affairs and The Economist and has been translated into eight languages.
The second, The Age of Confiscation: Making and Taking Property in the Creation of the Modern World is forthcoming in October 2026 with Allen Lane in the UK and in December 2026 with Little, Brown in the US. An international history of expropriation, it argues that the seizure of property has formed a major part of the great transformations of the last few centuries, ranging from the destruction of feudal institutions to the emancipation of slaves and serfs, the development of industrial infrastructure, and the seizure of assets in global economic warfare. The book advances a comparative account of how modern states have become dual-faced entities whose confiscatory powers to take property are as consequential as their proprietarian power to protect it.
Mulder is currently at work on a global history of the Lend-Lease program in the 1940s, as well as several projects dealing with the history of Eurasia in the long run; the relationship between economic globalization, democracy, and authoritarianism; and the philosophy of history in the global condition since the 1850s.
His writing about history, politics, economics, and international affairs has appeared in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Economist, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, The Nation, The New Statesman, Merkur, Le Grand Continent, and elsewhere. He writes the Weltinnenpolitik newsletter on Substack.
Research Focus
- Political and economic history of modern Europe
- International history
- Historical political economy
- History of geoeconomics
- Economic sanctions
- Confiscation, expropriation, and historical property regimes
- History of war (especially 1870 to 1945)
- History of international law
Affiliations
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Publications
Books
The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2022).
The Age of Confiscation: Making and Taking Property in the Creation of the Modern World (New York: Little, Brown/London: Allen Lane, 2026).
Articles and Book Chapters
'The New Nationalization Wave,' Finance and Development: A Quarterly Publication of the International Monetary Fund Vol. 63 Issue 2 (June 2026).
'The League of Nations and the Sanctions Revolution in International Law,' in Karin van Dijk, Morten Rasmussen, and Haakon Ikonomou, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of the League of Nations and International Law (Cambridge, 2026).
‘Vier Thesen über die Geschichte der Enteignung,’ in Niklas Angebauer, Jacob Blumenfeld, and Tilo Wesche, eds., Umkämpftes Eigentum: Eine gesellschaftstheoretische Debatte (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2025).
‘El intergubernamentalismo y la Unión Europea,’ in Carlos Corrochano, ed., Claves de política global (Madrid: Arpa, 2024).
"The Neoliberal Transition in Intellectual and Economic History," Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 84 No. 3 (July 2023).
"Asian Commercial Power and Economic Sanctions Against Russia," East Asia Forum Quarterly Vol. 15 No. 2 (June 2023).
"The Trump Administration and Economic Sanctions," in Robert Jervis, Diane Labrosse, Stacie Goddard, and Joshua Rovner, eds., Chaos Reconsidered: The Liberal Order and the Future of International Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023).
"The Sanctions Weapon," Finance and Development: A Quarterly Publication of the International Monetary Fund Vol. 59 Issue 2 (June 2022).
"Why Did Starvation Not Become the Paradigmatic War Crime in International Law?" in Kevin Jon Heller and Ingo Venzke, eds., Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal Histories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021): 370-390. (Co-authored with Boyd van Dijk)
"The Trading with the Enemy Acts in the Age of Expropriation, 1914-1949," Journal of Global History Vol. 15, No. 1 (March 2020): 81-99.
"‘A Retrograde Tendency’: The Expropriation of German Property in the Versailles Treaty," Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international Vol. 22, No. 1 (2020): 507-530.
"War Finance," in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, eds., 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, Freie Universität Berlin (February 2018).
In the news
- Cornell expert warns of strategic backfire, as oil shock looms
- LaFeber-Silbey Lecture considers “A World Without Law?”
- The west would harm itself with rash seizures of frozen Russian assets
- Sanctions Against Russia Ignore the Economic Challenges Facing Ukraine
- Don’t Expect Sanctions To Win the Ukraine War
- Experts: Ukraine war puts world in ‘uncharted territory’
- Environmental degradation focus of LaFeber-Silbey lecture March 10
- Economic sanctions evolved into tool of modern war
- COP 26 ushers ‘new domain of geopolitics’ as Russia demands sanction relief
- ‘Mild’ Russian sanctions signal need for de-escalation
- World Economic Forum features history professor’s analysis