author
Sir James Steuart
1712–1780
Best known for writing one of the earliest major works of political economy in English, this Scottish thinker brought law, history, and hard experience together in a way that still feels surprisingly modern. His life was shaped as much by exile and politics as by ideas on trade, money, and the state.
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About the author
Born in Edinburgh on October 21, 1712, Sir James Steuart was a Scottish economist, lawyer, and Jacobite. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, was admitted to the Scottish bar, and later spent years on the European continent after the Jacobite rising. He died in Edinburgh on November 26, 1780.
He is best remembered for An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy (1767), often described as one of the first systematic treatises on economics written in English and the first English book to use the phrase "political economy" in its title. His work explored trade, money, population, and the role of government, and it made him a leading late defender of mercantilist ideas.
Steuart also became known as Sir James Steuart Denham later in life after assuming the additional surname Denham. Although later overshadowed by Adam Smith, his writing remains important for readers interested in the early history of economics and the wider world of eighteenth-century Scottish thought.