The Economic Turn: Recasting Political Economy in Enlightenment Europe

(Hardback)

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The mid-eighteenth century witnessed what might be dubbed an economic turn that resolutely changed the trajectory of world history. The discipline of economics itself emerged amidst this turn, and it is frequently traced back to the work of Francois Quesnay and his school of Physiocracy. Though lionized by the subsequent historiography of economics, the theoretical postulates and policy consequences of Physiocracy were disastrous at the time, resulting in a veritable subsistence trauma in France. This galvanized relentless and diverse critiques of the doctrine not only in France but also throughout the European world that have, hitherto, been largely neglected by scholars. Though Physiocracy was an integral part of the economic turn, it was rapidly overcome, both theoretically and practically, with durable and important consequences for the history of political economy.

The Economic Turn brings together some of the leading historians of that moment to fundamentally recast our understanding of the origins and diverse natures of political economy in the Enlightenment.

Reviews

A major contribution to the history of political economy. Its twenty-one full-size chapters provide an insight into some of the most notable work done in the last decades in the field, but also develop and engage with a thesis of its own. Koen Stapelbroek, Erasmus University Rotterdam and University of Helsinki, Journal of Modern History (2020)

Author Bio

Steven L. Kaplan is the Goldwin Smith Professor of European History Emeritus at Cornell University, USA. His books include Bread, Politics and Political Economy (1976/2015), Farewell Revolution (1995), Le Pain maudit (2008) and Raisonner sur les bls (2017).

Sophus A. Reinert is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, USA. His books include Translating Empire (2011) and The Academy of Fisticuffs (2018).