Oh, I'm sorry I misunderstood what you meant by "centralist". I thought you were referring to politics. I should read more carefully. Possibly a period of exception to your centralization trend would be the 1980s in the U.S. and Great Britain; a period of rediscovering economic and political freedom. The successes of that period were mixed of course with some spectacular failures.
I could never get past assumptions made in the first week like people are always rational actors. Hence, I didn't major in it.
My only recommendation is to read some Austrian economic theory. It is the best to me in describing credit cycles.. and it is a study of human action.. not some quantative study of inference which like many have said doesn't work so well