Mercantilism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the system of economic thinking which dominated Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, between the 16th and 18th centuries, Europe was dominated by an economic way of thinking called mercantilism. The key idea was that exports should be as high as possible and imports minimised.
For more than 300 years, almost every ruler and political thinker was a mercantilist. Eventually, economists including Adam Smith, in his ground-breaking work of 1776 The Wealth of Nations, declared that mercantilism was a flawed concept and it became discredited. However, a mercantilist economic approach can still be found in modern times and today鈥檚 politicians sometimes still use rhetoric related to mercantilism.
With
D鈥橫aris Coffman
Professor in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at University College London
Craig Muldrew
Professor of Social and Economic History at the University of Cambridge and a Member of Queens鈥� College
and
Helen Paul, Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton.
Producer Luke Mulhall
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
READING LIST
D'Maris Coffman, Adrian Leonard and William O'Reilly (eds.), The Atlantic World (Routledge, 2019)
听
D. C. Coleman, Revisions in Mercantilism (Methuen, 1969)
听
Jonathan Conlin (ed.), Great Economic Thinkers (Reaktion Books, 2018)
听
William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (Bloomsbury, 2020)
听
Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951)
听
Eli Heckscher, Mercantilism (first published 1931; Routledge, 1994)
听
J. W. Horrocks, A Short History of Mercantilism (Routledge, 2017)
听
Terence Hutchison, Before Adam Smith: The Emergence of Political Economy, 1662-1776 (Wiley鈥揃lackwell, 1988)
听
Lars Magnusson, Mercantilism: The Shaping of an Economic Language (first published 1994; Routledge, 2015)
听
Lars Magnusson, The Political Economy of Mercantilism (Routledge, 2015)
听
Philipp Robinson R枚ssner, Freedom and Capitalism in Early Modern Europe: Mercantilism and the Making of the Modern Economic Mind (Palgrave Pivot, 2020)
听
Eric Roll, A History of Economic Thought (5th edition, Faber & Faber, 2002)
听
Ivano Cardinale and Roberto Scazzieri (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
听
Jacob Soll, Free Market: The History of an Idea (Basic Books, 2022)
听
Philip J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind (eds.), Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire (Oxford University Press, 2013)
听
P. J. Thomas, Mercantilism and the East India Trade (first published 1963; Routledge, 2020)
Koji Yamamoto, Taming Capitalism before its Triumph: Public Service, Distrust, and 'Projecting' in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2021)
RELATED LINKS
听
Broadcasts
- Thu 16 Mar 2023 09:00麻豆社 Radio 4
- Thu 16 Mar 2023 21:30麻豆社 Radio 4
Featured in...
![]()
18th Century—In Our Time
Browse the 18th Century era within the In Our Time archive.
![]()
17th Century—In Our Time
Browse the 17th Century era within the In Our Time archive.
![]()
16th Century—In Our Time
Browse the 16th Century era within the In Our Time archive.
![]()
Philosophy—In Our Time
From Altruism to Wittgenstein, philosophers, theories and key themes.
![]()
History—In Our Time
Historical themes, events and key individuals from Akhenaten to Xenophon.
In Our Time podcasts
Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.
The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10
If you鈥檙e new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.
Arts and Ideas podcast
Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.
Podcast
-
![]()
In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.
