“Simon Adler has written a book that is highly informative and harnesses an impressive amount of archival sources. … the reader receives an excellent insight into the theoretical and the practical learning processes that eighteenth- century political economists across Europe were engaged in. Zinzendorf provides an extremely intriguing case study of how political economy emancipated itself as a science that was debated across borders and that, by deciding the relative fiscal power of various European states, also decided those borders.” (Stefan Kolev, History of Political Economy, May 28, 2024)“This important book is astonishingly the first modern study of Count Ludwig Zinzendorf (1721–80), eighteenth-century Austria’s leading political economist in both theory and practice. … this study expands and deepens our knowledge of the policymaking debates that shaped a crucial moment in the history of Habsburg government. Its successes are assuredly attributable … .” (William D. Godsey, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 95 (2), June, 2023)“The book discusses Zinzendorf’s intellectual advancement through seven richly detailed chapters, each revealing new installments to both the theoretical and practical side of eighteenth-century disputes on political economy. … The greatest value of the volume lies in its comparative analysis. … Due to the long descriptions and thorough analysis of Zinzendorf’s economic texts, the book reads rather easily for experts. All in all, the book merits scholarly attention and hopefully will lead to further contributions in the field.” (Tibor Bodnár-Király, Austrian History Yearbook, Vol. 53, May, 2022)“Adler does not deal in generalizations or abstract concepts; his preferred method is to describe events with close reference to the sources, and to categorize and interpret strictly on the basis of empirical findings. As a result, his study produces substantial insights that are relevant to a number of different fields—not just economic history, but also intellectual and administrative history, as well as the history of the fiscal–military state. Adler’s book therefore deserves a wider readership than just historians of the Habsburg monarchy.” (Esteban Mauerer, German Historical Institute London Bulletin, Vol. 44 (1), May, 2022)“The great value of this study is that it updates our understanding of eighteenth-century political economy in the Germanic world by carefully and convincingly tracing the connections of one demonstrably important economist-administrator, Ludwig Zinzendorf, to a politically influential and often theoretically refined school of economic thinkers.” (Paul Cheney, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Vol. 43 (1), March, 2021)
