Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say's Political Economy

Richard Whatmore
Additional contact information
Richard Whatmore: University of Sussex

in OUP Catalogue from Oxford University Press

Abstract: Republicanism and the French Revolution reassesses Jean-Baptiste Say's political economy by locating the author's ideas amidst the intellectual upheavals of Old Regime and revolutionary France. Traditionally Say has been portrayed as a rather staid figure, the archetypal liberal and classical political economist devoted to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. This study reveals the historic Say to have been altogether different; a passionate and committed republican intellectual and French patriot, he was as opposed to Britain's constitution, commerce, and political culture as he was to Bonaparte's First Empire. The relationship between Say's political thought and political economy, evinced in the full range of his writings from 1789 to 1832, is scrutinized for the first time, elucidating the true origins of his republicanism. This derived from a rich seam of political speculation among French and Genevan radicals concerning the possibility of transforming large and corrupt monarchies into modern republics whose political culture was characterized by commerce and virtue. By the 1790s such ideas had come to define the French Revolution itself, at once promising to restore French greatness and replace Britain as the leading cultural force in Europe. Say looked back to such luminaries as Diderot, Gibbon, and Franklin as members of the modern republican Pantheon and dedicated his life to formulating a political economy that would persuade legislators and ordinary citizens to embrace the republican creed.

Date: 2000
ISBN: 9780199241156
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oxp:obooks:9780199241156

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://ukcatalogue.o ... uct/9780199241156.do

Access Statistics for this book

More books in OUP Catalogue from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Economics Book Marketing ().