An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy:
A Variorum Edition
Editors: Andrew S Skinner, Noboru Kobayashi and Hiroshi Mizuta
The Pickering Masters
978 1 85196 246 4: 234x156mm: £350.00/$625.00
vailability: Japan: United Publishers Service
An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy was Sir James Steuart’s most important work. Publishing it nine years before Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Steuart attempted to produce a single great conceptual system, linking the most interesting features of modern policy, such as population, agriculture, trade, industry, money, coin, interest, circulation, banks, exchange, public credit and taxes.
Many of Steuart's experiences found their way into the main body of the Principles in which he noted, for example, the economic consequences of the Seven Years War in Germany, the state of agriculture in Picardy, and the problem of depopulation in the cities of the Austrian Netherlands. Nearly eight years separate the first and last books of the Principles.
In preparing this variorum edition, the manuscript of the first two books has been checked against the text of the first edition of 1767, and the latter against the version which was published in 1805 as part of Steuart's Collected Works. Variations between the two texts have also been examined in the context of Steuart's 'corrected copy' of the first edition, which was presented to his friend and physician Thriepland of Fingask and which is now in the possession of the London School of Economics.
The Scottish political economist Sir James Steuart (1713-1780) completed the first two books of the Principles while living in Tübingen in 1759. One of the most important features of Steuart's career was his extensive knowledge of the Continent. The Foreign Tour (1735-40) and exile as a result of his association with the Jacobites (1745-63) meant that by the end of the Seven Years War, Sir James had spent almost half of his life abroad; these facts help to explain the Eurocentric nature of his work.
Contents
Book 1: Of Population and Agriculture
Introduction by Professor Andrew S Skinner
Book 2: Of Trade and Industry
Book 3: Of Money and Coin
Book 4: Of Credit and Debts
Reviews
‘… now at last we have a modern, scholarly edition of the complete text.’
– Vivienne Brown, Eighteenth-Century Scotland