The Enlightenment Above National Context
Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century Scotland and Naples
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8958024 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Robertson (0000-0001-6558-528X, St. John's College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 667-697 |
| Publication date | 1997-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x9700736x |
| OpenAlex | W2068925326 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
It is now common to study the Enlightenment ‘in national context’, and in few cases has the approach been more fertile than in the study of the Scottish Enlightenment. The danger of this approach, however, is that it deflects attention from the international connections of the Enlightenment, fragmenting the movement as a whole. It is argued here that the Enlightenment is better understood as an intellectual movement which was both cosmopolitan and patriotic, and that this is particularly evident in its commitment to political economy, as the key to improving the human condition in this world. The argument is developed through a comparison of Scottish and Neapolitan political economy from the mid- to the later eighteenth century. Though set apart by very different economic circumstances, the Scots and the Neapolitans had a common point of reference in French economic writings, and through these Hume's ideas in particular were transmitted to Naples. It was from within this common intellectual framework that the Scots and the Neapolitans elaborated their distinctive positions on the scope for free trade between nations. If Hume and Smith believed that poor countries such as Scotland would prosper through greater free trade, while Genovesi and Galiani argued that only by measures of protection could the abundant natural resources of the kingdom of Naples be harnessed to its benefit, their differences derived from shared premises, and a comparable fear of the inclination of the leading mercantile powers, Britain and France, to control trade to their sole advantage
Archaeology · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Context (archaeology · Economics · Economy · Enlightenment · Literature · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scots · Scottish Enlightenment · Sociology · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Philosophy
"Adam Smith's "Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review
The Scottish Enlightenment and Scottish Social Thought c.1725–1915
Scepticism, priestcraft, and toleration
The Case for The Enlightenment
Cameralism and the sciences of the state
Political languages of the French Revolution
Encyclopedias and the diffusion of knowledge
The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought
Social contract theory and its critics
The comparative study of regimes and societies
Ferdinando Galiani’s Newtonian Social Mathematics
Enlightenment Rhetoric Reconsidered
The Evolution of Grain Policy
Science at sea
The Modernization of Kabbalah
The Ottoman Enlightenment
Natural History and the Pursuit of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Spain
Joseph N. Nicollet and Great Plains Ethnohistory
Enlightenment Political Thought and the Cambridge School
Virtue, Production, and the Politics of Commerce
Language revitalization discourses as metaculture
The Scottish Path to Capitalist Agriculture 3
| Unique citing works | 22 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,92 |
| Citation span | 2002 - 2023 (22) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 21 |