Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire

From schoolbooks to scholarly monographs, mercantilism has come to be synonymous with early modern political economy, though it is just as often criticized as inadequate, incomplete, or incoherent as both a theory and a set of policies. This book takes a new approach to this problematic subject by rethinking its broad foundations. From a variety of perspectives, its authors situate mercantilism against the backdrop of wider transformations in seventeenth-century Britain, Europe, and the Atlantic, from the scientific revolution to the expansion of empire.

Not seeking to offer yet another definition or critique of mercantilism, Stern, Duke associate professor of history, and his co-editor instead reappraise its value in light of new approaches and understanding of the core characteristics and objects with which it has been traditionally associated: population, money, commodities, markets, merchants, institutions, warfare, and, of course, the state. In so doing, it offers a new narrative of early modern political economy that neither abandons nor assumes the use and validity of mercantilism but rather situates it in its various political, scientific, intellectual, social, and cultural contexts.