Conclusion

Writers on historical affairs in the eighteenth century increasingly came to conceive of commerce as a sphere of activity which was more dependent on the manners and desires of a nation's people than it was on the specific actions of its monarchs. The book's conclusion discusses this development with reference to a range of writers (including Hugh Blair, Adam Anderson and Catharine Macaulay) and considers its consequences. Chief among these, it is argued, was a shift in attitudes towards economic statecraft, and a series of new approaches to the histories of finances and commerce.