@article{1441704,
      recid = {1441704},
      author = {Alimento, A. and Della Fontana, Aris,},
      title = {Histories of trade as histories of civilisation /},
      pages = {1 online resource (xii, 362 pages) :},
      note = {Includes index.},
      abstract = {This edited collection explores the histories of trade, a  peculiar literary genre that emerged in the context of the  historiographical and cultural changes promoted by the  histoire philosophique movement. It marked a discontinuity  with erudition and antiquarianism, and interacted  critically with universal history. By comparing and linking  the histories of individual peoples within a common  historical process, this genre enriched the reflection on  civilisation that emerged during the long eighteenth  century. Those who looked to the past wanted to understand  the political constitutions and manners most appropriate to  commerce, and grasp the recurring mechanisms underlying  economic development. In this sense, histories of trade  constituted a declination of eighteenth-century political  economy, and thus became an invaluable analytical and  practical tool for a galaxy of academic scholars,  journalists, lawyers, administrators, diplomats and  government ministers whose ambition was to reform the  political, social and economic structure of their nations.  Moreover, thanks to these investigations, a lucid awareness  of historical temporality and, more particularly, the  irrepressible precariousness of economic hegemonies,  developed. However, as a field of tension in which multiple  and even divergent intellectual sensibilities met, this  literary genre also found space for critical assessments  that focused on the ambivalence and dangers of commercial  civilisation. Examining the complex relationship between  the production of wealth and civilisation, this book  provides unique insights for scholars of political economy,  intellectual history and economic history. Antonella  Alimento is Professor of Early Modern History at the  University of Pisa, Italy. She specialises in European  political and economic history and is Co-Editor (with Koen  Stapelbroek) of The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the  Eighteenth Century (Palgrave, 2017). Aris Della Fontana is  a doctoral student at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa,  Italy, and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1441704},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80087-1},
}