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Wealth And Peace: The History And Political Economy Of Montesquieu's Doux Commerce, Adam W. Saltzman

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this work is to trace the genesis of doux commerce from its origins as a social phenomenon, to its employment as a political theory in the Spirit of the Laws by the Enlightenment philosophe Montesquieu, to its implementation by entities globally in the aftermath. The study will seek to determine the importance of doux commerce to the evolutionary progression of societies and their economies during the eighteenth century, its role in the dissolution of mercantilism, and its position in the rise of free trade and industrial capitalism during the nineteenth century. The concept has only recently been …