Description

8vo (125 x 202 mm). 2 vols. XXXCVIII, 702 pp. (703)-1283, (1) pp. Contemporary blue-green paper covered boards, spines lettered and ruled in gilt on contrasting orange and purple labels. First edition. A major treatise on public finance by the German philosopher and political economist Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob (1759-1827), a major contributor to the early dissemination of Adam Smith's economic thought in Germany and the German translator of Say's 'Traité d’économie politique'. "Jakob had been one of the first adherents of Kantian philosophy at Halle, where he was made Extraordinary Professor of Philosophy in 1789, and full Professor in 1791. After publishing a number of texts in ethics and Natural Law, from the later 1790s he devoted his energies almost entirely to the Cameralistic sciences" (Tribe, p. 170) and political economy. Jakob’s close adherence to Kantianism was characteristic of the first generation of Adam Smith's followers in Germany, and he was "able to approach the categories of 'Wealth of Nations' in a formalized manner which laid bare the theoretical principles of Smithian economics" (ibid., p. 169). - Some faint foxing to preliminaries and terminal leaves of both volumes, otherwise internally clean. Subtle restoration work to extremities; a very good set. - Kayser III, 240. Cf. K. Tribe, Governing Economy: The Reformation of German Economic Discourse, 1750-1840 (CUP, 1988).