The Political Economy of Empire in the Early Modern World (Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies)

This collection of essays draws on fresh readings of classic texts as well as rigorous research in the archives of Europe's greatest imperial power. Its contributors paint a powerful picture of the nature and implementation of political economy in the long eighteenth century, from the East to the West Indies. Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction: The Political Economy of Empire....Pages 1-7 Front Matter....Pages 9-9 An Empire of Trade: Commercial Reason of State in Seventeenth-Century Holland....Pages 11-31 A Natural Order of Empire: The Physiocratic Vision of Colonial France after the Seven Years’ War....Pages 32-52 Adam Smith on American Economic Development and the Future of the European Atlantic Empires....Pages 53-75 Views from the South: Images of Britain and Its Empire in Portuguese and Spanish Political Economic Discourse, ca. 1740–1810....Pages 76-104 The Empire of Emulation: A Quantitative Analysis of Economic Translations in the European World, 1500–1849....Pages 105-128 Front Matter....Pages 129-129 War, Peace and the Rise of the London Stock Market....Pages 131-146 The Impact of Gifts and Trade: Georgia Colonists and Yamacraw Indians in the Colonial American Southeast....Pages 147-172 Retrenchment, Reform and the Practice of Military-Fiscalism in the Early East India Company State....Pages 173-191 How Feeding Slaves Shaped the French Atlantic: Mercantilism and the Crisis of Food Provisioning in the Franco-Caribbean during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries....Pages 192-220 Back Matter....Pages 221-241 "This volume recasts our understanding of the practical and theoretical foundations and dynamic experiences of early modern imperialism. The imperial encounter with political economy was neither uniform across political, economic, cultural, and religious constellations nor static across time. The contributions collected in this volume address, with undeniable pertinence for the struggles of later periods, the moral and military ambiguity of profits and power as well as the often jealous interactions between different solutions to the problem of empire. By synthesising economic, intellectual, and cultural historiographies, the book presents a powerful mosaic of imperial theories and practices contributing to the creation of the modern world and to the most pressing concerns of our time"-- Provided by publisher