Introduction: Money and political economy in the era of enlightenment

The emergence of political economy as a philosophical preoccupation constitutes a defining feature of the Enlightenment but there was no 'position' on this subject that attracted consensus. This introduction charts different sources in the period for thinking about issues of money, trade, banking, the role of the state, including political arithmetic, the impact of the Financial Revolution, the Great Recoinage in the 1690s and republican political philosophy. The argument shows that attention to political economy problematises efforts to periodise Enlightenment, and that determining what was progressive and what was 'backward looking' proves more difficult to assess on closer inspection.