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THE CONTEXTS AND CONTOURS OF BRITISH ECONOMIC LITERATURE, 1660–1760

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2006

JULIAN HOPPIT
JULIAN HOPPIT
Affiliation:
University College London
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Abstract

This article explores some of the main bibliographical dimensions of economic literature at a time when there was much interest in economic matters but no discipline of economics. By looking at what was published in the round much economic literature is shown to be short, ephemeral, unacknowledged, polemical, and legislatively orientated. This fluidity is underscored by the uncertaintities about what constituted key works of economic literature and by the failure of attempts to make sense of that literature through dictionaries and histories. Economic literature in the period was, consequently, more unstable and uncertain than has often been acknowledged. It cannot, therefore, be simply characterized as either ‘mercantilist’ or nascent ‘political economy’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 79 - 110
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Joanna Innes, Ted McCormick, Renaud Morieux, and David Ormrod kindly commented on a draft of this article. Audiences at Cambridge, London, and Paris also helped considerably. I am grateful to the British Academy and the Huntington Library for awarding me small grants to undertake some of the research. Publication of pre-1800 works is in London unless otherwise stated.