Charles Gide

Born in Uzès, France, in 1847, Charles Gide became one of the country's best-known economists and historians of economic thought. He taught at the universities of Bordeaux, Montpellier, and Paris, and later at the Collège de France.

Gide is especially remembered for his support of consumer cooperatives and for treating economics as a moral and social question, not just a matter of markets and numbers. Protestant sources describe him as a leading figure in Christian socialism, and his work consistently emphasized solidarity and social reform.

He died in 1932, but his writing continued to matter well beyond his lifetime. Readers interested in the history of economics will find in him a thoughtful critic of laissez-faire ideas and an influential voice for the social economy.