Economistes and the Reinvention of Empire
France in the Americas and Africa, c.1750–1802

A rich intellectual history of the reinvention of France's colonial empire in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Pernille Røge (Author)

9781108483131, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 August 2019

310 pages, 2 b/w illus. 5 maps
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.9 cm, 0.64 kg

'Economistes and the Reinvention of Empire offers a welcome and surprisingly revelatory change of perspective by pulling the Physiocrats from the familiar context of the Flour Wars to consider their thinking on matters international and imperial.' Rebecca L. Spang, The William and Mary Quarterly

Exploring the myriad efforts to strengthen colonial empire that unfolded in response to France's imperial crisis in the second half of the eighteenth century, Pernille Røge examines how political economists, colonial administrators, planters, and entrepreneurs shaped the recalibration of empire in the Americas and in Africa alongside the intensification of the French Caribbean plantation complex. Emphasising the intellectual contributions of the Economistes (also known as the Physiocrats) to formulate a new colonial doctrine, the book highlights the advent of an imperial discourse of commercial liberalisation, free labour, agricultural development, and civilisation. With her careful documentation of the reciprocal impacts of economic ideas, colonial policy and practices, Røge also details key connections between Ancien Régime colonial innovation and the French Revolution's republican imperial agenda. The result is a novel perspective on the struggles to reinvent colonial empire in the final decades of the Ancien Régime and its influences on the French Revolution and beyond.

Introduction
1. A colonial empire in crisis
2. Empire beyond the mercantile system
3. Between enslaved territories and overseas provinces
4. Supplying or supplanting the Americas
5. A revolutionary crescendo
Conclusion: Ancien Régime legacies.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD], General & world history [HBG]