Critical Engagements with Economic Thought
Carl Wennerlind

Carl Wennerlind

Position
  • Associate Professor, Barnard College–Columbia University
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 is currently at work on two books -- one on the history of scarcity (tentatively titled A History of Scarcity: Humanity, Nature, and the World of Goods) and one on David Hume's political economy (tentatively titled Hume's Wordly Philosophy). 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 will be a fellow at the Davis Center, Princeton University.

He has taught such courses as "Introduction to European History: Renaissance to the French Revolution"; "Filthy Lucre: A History of Money"; "Capitalism and the Enlightenment"; "Merchants, Pirates, and Slaves in the Formation of Atlantic Capitalism: 1600-1800"; "Commercial Practices, Commercial Imaginations in Europe, 1300-1750" (graduate seminar); and "History of Political Economy" (graduate seminar).

Contact

Email
cwennerl@barnard.edu
Phone
+1 (212) 854-2055

Contact Info

History Department, Barnard College, Columbia University
3009 Broadway
New York
,
NY
10027
Social Media and Websites

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Selected Publications

Books:

Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011) 

Hume's Worldly Philosophy (with Margaret Schabas). In process. 

A History of Scarcity: Humanity, Nature, and the World of Goods (with Fredrik Albritton-Jonsson). Under contract with Harvard University Press.

Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire. Co-edited with Philip Stern (Oxford University Press, 2014)

David Hume's Political Economy. Co-edited with Margaret Schabas (Routledge, 2008)

Refereed Articles:

"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.

“David Hume’s Monetary Theory Revisited: Was He Really a Quantity Theorist and an Inflationist?” Journal of Political Economy. February 2005. Vol. 113. No. 1:  223-37.

      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). 

“The Death Penalty as Monetary Policy: The Practice and Punishment of Monetary Crime, 1690-1830.”History of Political Economy. March 2004. Vol. 36. No. 1: 129-59.

"Credit-Money as the Philosopher’s Stone: Alchemy and the Coinage Problem in Seventeenth-Century England.” History of Political Economy. 2003. Supplement to Vol. 35: 235-62.

       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. November 2002. Vol. 28. No. 2: 247-70.

       Reprinted in David Hume (Ashgate, 2013). Ed. by Haakonssen and Whatmore.

“The Labor Theory of Value and the Strategic Role of Alienation.” Capital and Class. Summer 2002. No. 77: 1-21.

“Money Talks, but What is it Saying? The Semiotics of Money and Social Control.” Journal of Economic Issues. September. 2001. Vol. 35. No. 3: 557-74.

       Translated (Bulgarian) and reprinted in Money and Culture. 2008. No. 1: 76-93. 

       Translated (Russian) and reprinted in Voprosy Economiki. Forthcoming. 

“The Link between David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature and his Fiduciary Theory of Money.” History of Political Economy. March 2001. Vol. 33. No. 1: 139-60.

"The Humean Paternity to Adam Smith's Theory of Money." History of Economic Ideas. Spring 2000. Vol. 8. No. 1: 77-97. 

Articles in Books:

“Political Economy” in Angela Coventry and Alex Sager, eds., The Humean Mind (London: Routledge, forthcoming).

“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 2017). 

 “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.