Richard Cantillon's Essay on the Nature of Trade in General

Richard van den Berg is Associate Professor of Accounting, Finance and Informatics at Kingston University, UK.

"This variorum edition of the Essai, together with the scholarly material contained in the introductory chapters and the comments, represents a breathtaking amount of meticulous scholarship. It is a huge achievement and opens up avenues for future work..." Renee Prendergast, The UK History of Economic Thought Society "In conclusion, this new edition is a precious, indispensable tool for informed readers. It marks an important phase in research on Cantillon, and there can be no doubt that it will help renew that research." Christine Théré, Cairn-int.info "Above all, Cantillon’s Essay is systematic and integrated...The financial turbulence of the past decade underlines the continued relevance of Cantillon’s seminal analysis, so we are very fortunate indeed to have this extremely helpful and clearly authoritative edition to hand." John Berdell, DePaul University, Journal of the History of Economic Thought"The contribution that Richard van den Berg makes with his edition is considerable, for our attention is forced to the structure of one particular text and its place within a European, rather than national, context." Keith Tribe, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 24:5, 1107-1109

• Preface 1 Introduction 2 Historical backgrounds to the texts 2.1 The French versions 2.1.1 The print editions 2.1.2 The French manuscript versions 2.1.3 Variations between the French versions 2.2 The English versions 2.2.1 The Fragments in Postlethwayt’s Universal Dictionary 2.2.2 Philip Cantillon’s Analysis 3 The Higgs translation 4 The uses of this edition Presentation of the texts