This book collects together for the first time Anthony Brewer's work on the origins and development of the theory of economic growth from its eighteenth-century beginnings to its dominance in economic thinking in the nineteenth century. The key to the origins of the theory is that writers before Turgot and Smith, though they laid the foundations for later work, had no concept of continuing growth.

This book looks at many of the key players such as Smith, Hume, Ferguson, Steuart, Turgot, West and Rae and is tied together with a rigorous introduction and a new chapter on...