“Frith has written a highly commendable thesis and should be congratulated. The work is thorough, carefully executed, and insightful. It constitutes an important contribution to the history of economic thought, re-examining the American protectionist school of thought... Frith is breaking new ground by showing the American protectionists had a coherent conceptual foundation on which they built a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the economy... This thesis should stand as the authoritative treatment of the American protectionist school of economic thought.”

–  Emeritus Professor Harry Bloch, Curtin University

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“Frith's dissertation is an accomplished piece of scholarly research fully justifying the conferral of the title of Doctor of Philosophy on its author... There is no question in my mind that this work meets the standards of relevance and originality expected from a dissertation in the history of economics... The dissertation succeeds in establishing its main claim, namely, that the American Protectionists from the long 19th century constituted a coherent and systematic school of economic thought, which stood its ground alongside other, more well-known traditions of political economy... I could offer no greater praise of this dissertation than to confirm that once we reach the discussion of international trade in Chapter 13... all the pieces seem to fall very naturally into place... this provides a powerful vindication of the author's claim that the protectionists were indeed systematic political economists, rather than mere ideologues.”

–  Associate Professor Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak, American University of Paris