Carl Wennerlind
Department
History
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Professor Wennerlind specializes in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, with a focus on intellectual history and political economy. He is particularly interested in the historical development of money and credit, as well as attempts to theorize these phenomena. He is the author of Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011) and A Philosopher's Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism (Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2020). He is currently at work on two books -- one on the history of scarcity (tentatively titled Scarcity: Economics and the Anthropocene) and one on the formation of a seventeenth-century Swedish discourse on improvement (tentatively titled, Atlantis Restored: The Improvement of Nature and Nation in Early Modern Sweden). In addition to his co-edited volumes David Hume’s Political Economy (with Margaret Schabas) and Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire (with Phil Stern), Wennerlind’s work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Perspectives, History of Political Economy, and Hume Studies.
His research has been supported by the NEH, American Philosophical Society, ACLS, Institute for New Economic Thinking, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Magn. Bergvalls Stiftelse, Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse, Sven och Dagmar Salens Stiftelse, and Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius Stiftelse. During the 2016-17 academic year, he was a fellow at the Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University.
His courses include "Introduction to European History: Renaissance to the French Revolution"; "A History of Money"; "Capitalism and the Enlightenment"; "Merchants, Pirates, and Slaves in the Formation of Atlantic Capitalism: 1600-1800"; "History of Capitalism"; "Scarcity: Economy and Nature"; "Commercial Practices, Commercial Imaginations in Europe, 1300-1750" (graduate seminar); Debating Capitalism (graduate seminar); and "History of Political Economy" (graduate seminar).
- B.A., University of South Florida
- Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
- European history
- History of Ideas
- Economic history
- History of political economy
Publications
Monographs:
Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011)
A Philosopher's Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism (University of Chicago Press, 2020), co-authored with Margaret Schabas
Scarcity: Economics and the Anthropocene (Harvard University Press, Forthcoming), co-authored with Fredrik Albritton-Jonsson
Edited Volumes:
Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire (Oxford University Press, 2014), co-edited with Philip Stern
David Hume's Political Economy (Routledge, 2008), co-edited with Margaret Schabas
"The Role of Political Economy in Hume's Moral Philosophy." Hume Studies. April 2011. Vol. 37. No. 1: 43-64
Winner of Association for Social Economics' Warren Samuels Prize (2012)
“Hume on Money, Trade, and the Science of Economics.” Journal of Economic Perspectives. Co-authored with M. Schabas. Summer 2011. Vol. 25. No. 3: 1-14.
Winner of the History of Economics Society's Best Article Prize (2006).
Winner of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought's
History of Economic Analysis Award for Best Article (2006).
Revised version translated (French) and reprinted in Les Pensées
Monétaires dans l'histoire, de 1517 à 1776 (forthcoming).
“David Hume’s Political Philosophy: A Theory of Commercial Modernization.” Hume Studies. November2002. Vol. 28. No. 2: 247-70.
Reprinted in David Hume (Ashgate, 2013). Ed. by Haakonssen and Whatmore.
Translated (Bulgarian) and reprinted in Money and Culture. 2008. No. 1: 76-93.
Translated (Russian) and reprinted in Voprosy Economiki. Forthcoming.
"The Humean Paternity to Adam Smith's Theory of Money." History of Economic Ideas. Spring 2000. Vol. 8. No. 1: 77-97.
"Money and Its Ideas: Enlightenment Debates about the Morality of Money" in Christine Desan, ed., A Cultural History of Money in the Age of Enlightenment (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
“Political Economy” in Angela Coventry and Alex Sager, eds., The Humean Mind (London: Routledge, 2019).
“Theatrum Œconomicum: Anders Berch and the Dramatization of the Swedish Improvement Discourse” in Robert Freedona and Sophus Reinert, eds., The Legitimacy of Power: New Perspectives on the History of Political Economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2018).
“The Political Economy of Sweden’s Age of Greatness: Johan Risingh and the Hartlib Circle” in Philipp Robinson Rössner, ed., Economic Growth and the Origins of Modern Political Economy: Economic Reasons of State, 1500- 2000 (New York, NY; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2016).
"Money: Hartlibian Political Economy and the New Culture of Credit" in Stern and Wennerlind, eds., Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
“An Artificial Virtue and the Oil of Commerce: A Synthetic view of Hume's Theory of Money” in Wennerlind and Schabas, eds., David Hume's Political Economy (London: Routledge Press, 2008).
“David Hume as a Political Economist” in Dow and Dow, eds., A History of Scottish Economic Thought(London: Routledge Press, 2006).
Reprinted in Storia del Pensiero Economico. 2007. Vol. 32. No. 2: 5-28.