author
Sir James Steuart
1712–1780
A Scottish economist and Jacobite exile, he wrote one of the earliest full-scale works in English on political economy. His life moved through law, politics, and long years abroad before ending in Edinburgh, where his writing helped shape early economic thought.
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About the author
Born in Edinburgh on 21 October 1712, Sir James Steuart was trained in law and admitted to the Scottish bar in 1735. He came from a prominent family, but his life was deeply affected by politics: after the Jacobite rising of 1745, he spent many years in exile on the Continent.
Those years abroad gave him a wide view of trade, finance, and government. He is best known for An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy (1767), often described as one of the first systematic economic treatises written in English and the first English-language book to use the term “political economy” in its title.
Steuart returned to Scotland later in life and died in Edinburgh on 26 November 1780. Although later overshadowed by Adam Smith, he remains an important figure in the history of economic writing, especially for readers interested in how ideas about commerce and state policy were taking shape in the eighteenth century.