This collection of thirty-seven readings (from thirty-three writers) brings together some of the most significant pre–Adam Smith writings on the political and cultural dimensions of capitalism. To modern readers, these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century discussions of commerce and economic life in general are surprising because they are so closely integrated to moral and cultural issues. Though we may have forgotten how extensively such issues were once discussed, it is uncanny what a contemporary ring many of these issues have. Part of the value of this book is in reminding us that many of our own concerns are not without precedent and earlier reflection. The selections come both from now-unfamiliar authors who were influential in their own time, as well as from such well-known writers as Rousseau, Defoe, Fielding, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. The essays emphasize the human meaning of the market; they were selected to provide a sense of the range of opinion that prevailed on the broader significance of the market economy before it became a pervasive feature of modern life. Commerce, Culture, and Liberty presents rich and provocative writings on the relationship between commerce and luxury, virtue, nobility, agriculture, the state, religion, civility, and liberty. The book restores the voice of a rich body of reflections on the larger import of the birth of the modern economy that has been largely silent in academic discourse on the topic. Moreover, it presents significant though hard-to-find writings by a host of well-known authors, including a little-known essay by Rousseau. It also presents important writings that have been preempted by Adam Smith, writings that say as much about our age as about the age in which they were written. Henry C. Clark is Visiting Professor in the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism at Clemson University. He has published two books and several articles, mainly on the French and Scottish Enlightenments.

Commerce, Culture, and Liberty: Readings on Capitalism Before Adam Smith

Business & Money

Henry C. Clark

Economics

Liberty Fund

Often described as the culmination of the French Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie was collected not only to serve as a comprehensive reference work, but to “change the way men think” about every aspect of the human and natural worlds. In his celebrated “Preliminary Discourse” to the compilation, d’Alembert traced an entire history of modern philosophy and science designed to chart the way toward a sweeping Baconian project of improving the world through usable knowledge. This anthology is the first endeavor to bring together the most significant political writing from the entire twenty-million-word compendium. It includes eighty-one of the most original, controversial, and representative articles on political ideas, practices, and institutions, many translated into English for the first time. The articles cover such topics as the foundations of political order, the relationship between natural and civil liberty, the different types of constitutional regimes, the role of the state in economic and religious affairs, and the boundaries between manners, morals, and laws. In addition to Diderot’s early and important articles “Political Authority,” the “Citizen,” and “Natural Right” and the substantial treatments of subjects such as the “Legislator” (by Saint-Lambert), “Representation” (by d’Holbach), “Population” (by Damilaville), and “Political Economy” (by Quesnay), the anthology will also introduce to many English-language readers the tireless figure of Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt (1704–80), who wrote about 18,000 articles, or about 25 percent of the Encyclopédie. Jaucourt’s numerous articles on political topics did much to solidify the new political teachings of the natural-law tradition, the English Whig writers, the Huguenot diaspora, and particularly Montesquieu, whose Spirit of the Laws had appeared shortly before the first volume of the Encyclopédie itself. Henry C. Clark is a Visiting Professor in the Political Economy Project at Dartmouth College. He has written two books and numerous articles, mainly on the French and Scottish Enlightenments. Christine Dunn Henderson is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund.

Encyclopedic Liberty: Political Articles in the Dictionary of Diderot and D’Alembert

Denis Diderot

Jean Le Rond D'Alembert

Excerpt from Report of the Exercises at the Dedication of the Statue of Ebenezer Knight Dexter: Presented to the City of Providence, June 29, 1894Gentlemen: If you will expend Five Thousand Dol Iars 00) in improving the Dexter Training Field, I will give, to be placed upon the ground, a bronze statue of Columbus to be cast by the Gorham M'f'g co.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Report of the Exercises at the Dedication of the Statue of Ebenezer Knight Dexter: Presented to the City of Providence, June 29, 1894 (Classic Reprint)

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