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From antiquity to our own time those interested in political economy have with almost no exceptions regarded the natural physical environment as a resource meant for human use. Focusing on the period 1600-1850, and paying particular attention to major figures including Adam Smith, T.R. Malthus, David Ricardo and J.S. Mill, this book provides a detailed overview of the intellectual history of the economic consideration of nature from antiquity to modern times. It shows how even someone like Mill, who was clearly influenced by romantic notions regarding the spiritual need for contact with pristine nature, ultimately regarded it as an economic resource.
List of contents
Preface
List of Abbreviations
PART I ATTITUDES TOWARD NATURE
FROM ANTIQUITY TO MERCANTILISM
1 From Antiquity to the Renaissance
2 Mercantilism and Natural Resources
PART II THE ENLIGHTENMENT ROOTS
OF CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
3 Pre-Classical Enlightenment Developments
4 The Physiocrats and the Bread Riots
5 From Adam Smith to Classical Political Economy
6 John Stuart Mill and the Idea of Progress
PART III MANAGING THE USE OF NATURE
7 Managing Nature in the Enlightenment
8 Ricardo and Malthus on the Utilization of Nature
9 Jean-Baptiste Say and Other Contemporaries
10 John Stuart Mill’s Attitude toward Nature
Epilogue: From Socialism to Modernity
About the author
Nathaniel Wolloch is an Independent Scholar from Israel, specializing in European intellectual history. He is the author of Subjugated Animals: Animals and Anthropocentrism in Early Modern European Culture (2006), and History and Nature in the Enlightenment: Praise of the Mastery of Nature in Eighteenth-Century Historical Literature (2011).
