a Mind of Its Own a Cultural History of

Rethinking Mercantilism brings together a group of young early modern British and European historians to investigate what use the concept "mercantilism" might still hold for both scholars and teachers of the period. While scholars often find the term unsatisfactory, mercantilism has stubbornly survived both in our classrooms and in the general scholarly discourse.

The historical, Rosemary Jann reminds us, was the common coin of the nineteenth century, the currency of its most characteristic art, and the security for its most significant intellectual transactions. Defenders of absolutes, whether rational or religious, learned to use history as an asset and not a liability; and uneasy relativists found some compensation in its didactic value. Rival ideologies competed for its sanctions. Poets and scientists looked to it for inspiration…