![]() | Translating Empire: Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy Subjects: Economics -- Europe -- History -- 18th century; Philosophy European -- 18th century; Europe -- Intellectual life -- 18th century; Enlightenment -- Europe; 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. Reinert Sophus A. : Sophus A. Reinert is Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. |
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