Turgot: Statement of the Enlightenment

by Malcolm Hill (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $4.34

  In this biography of Anne-Robert Turgot, a remarkable scholar who contributed to the birth of economic science in Paris in the 1750's, the author argues that the 1791 revolution probably would not have happened if Turgot's tax reformation plans had been adopted. As the leading minister of France, Turgot worked to strike out much of the ancient regime's economic injustice. But, when on the brink of executing the centerpiece of his taxation reform, he was undermined by the court and aristacratic financiers. Hill believes an understanding of Turgot's life and economic theories will help us meet the challenge of the millennium, and had his plans been adopted in the 18th century the development of the mation-state would have taken a different course. The thoughts and beliefs of Anne Robert Turgot were both simple and profound. He brought a fresh spirit into the process of government, which raised it far above the usual political maneuvering. He achieved a status that few other statesmen in modern European political thought have reached but much of his greatness has been hidden in the aftermath of the French Revolution.