Translating empire : emulation and the origins of political economy / Sophus A. Reinert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reinert, Sophus A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economics--Europe--History--18th century.

Economics.

Enlightenment--Europe.

Enlightenment.

Philosophy, European--18th century.

Philosophy, European.

Europe--Intellectual life--18th century.

Europe.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (454 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Historians have traditionally used the discourses of free trade and laissez faire to explain the development of political economy during the Enlightenment. But from Sophus Reinert's perspective, eighteenth-century political economy can be understood only in the context of the often brutal imperial rivalries then unfolding in Europe and its former colonies and the positive consequences of active economic policy. The idea of economic emulation was the prism through which philosophers, ministers, reformers, and even merchants thought about economics, as well as industrial policy and reform, in the early modern period. With the rise of the British Empire, European powers and others sought to selectively emulate the British model.In mapping the general history of economic translations between 1500 and 1849, and particularly tracing the successive translations of the Bristol merchant John Cary's seminal 1695 Essay on the State of England, Reinert makes a compelling case for the way that England's aggressively nationalist policies, especially extensive tariffs and other intrusive market interventions, were adopted in France, Italy, Germany, and Scandinavia before providing the blueprint for independence in the New World. Relatively forgotten today, Cary's work served as the basis for an international move toward using political economy as the prime tool of policymaking and industrial expansion.Reinert's work challenges previous narratives about the origins of political economy and invites the current generation of economists to reexamine the foundations, and future, of their discipline.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Figures

Map: the Americas and the Caribbean, c. 1788

Map: Europe, c. 1788, with dates of publication for Cary's Essay on the State of England

Introduction

Chapter one. Emulation and Translation

Chapter two. Cary's Essay on the State of England

Chapter three. Butel- Dumont's Essai sur l'État du Commerce d'Angleterre

Chapter four. Genovesi's Storia del commercio della Gran Brettagna

Chapter five. Wichmann's Ökonomischpolitischer Commentarius

Epilogue

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674063235

0674063236

OCLC:

758389541