Providing a -short take- on the long history of political economy, this book examines both the stories about and those within economics. It traces the history of political economy from its beginnings in the Scottish Enlightenment; through its disciplinary demarcation as a science in the nineteenth century that saw its differentiation from literary, aesthetic, and moral discourses; and its emergence as the -amoral- market-driven neoliberalism that dominates economic theories and policies today.
In exploring the long history of economic thought, it examines and challenges both Enlightenment and contemporary grand narratives such as the stadial theory of progress, the -Great Divergence- and the -Great Convergence- that have divided the world into global norths and souths according to their economic advantages. It concludes with a study of currency as both a medium of monetary exchange and a term that denotes prevalence and acceptance to explore political economy-s c
