Economic Growth and the Origins of Modern Political Economy: Economic Reasons of State, 1500–2000, ed. Philipp Robinson Rössner

Philipp Robinson Rössner has brought together an impressive line-up of some of today’s finest economic historians to re-evaluate the importance and legacy of early modern mercantilism and cameralism, theories so often misunderstood and misrepresented that he prefers to call them ‘economic reason(s) of state’ instead. Held together by Rössner’s strong introduction, the volume combines intellectual history with empirical studies of economic history and the history of science. Its premise is easily summarised. As Rössner argues in his introduction, the commonplace of early modern European economic discourse, namely that markets and economies needed a strong and proactive state to regulate and guard them, has been revived notably by Larry Epstein and Bernard Harcourt. The empirical evidence is mounting that, without interventionist states,...