La scienza economica come 'dottrina'. Manuali e trattati di economia politica nell'Italia liberale (1840-1922) (Political economy as a doctrine: manuals and treatises of economics in italy in the liberal age (1840-1922))

The paper illustrates the evolution of manuals of political economy in the period between 1840, the year of publication of Antonio Scialoja’s Principj della economia sociale, and 1922, the date which marks the end of the liberal age. A cursory overview and a bibliographical study highlight the overall dimension of this literature, the different nature of works, the goals attributed to them and the public to which they were addressed. The paper examines both the main manuals and treatises of political economy, and a large number of minor works, popularisations, and lecture notes, which accompanied the multiplication of university courses in this discipline. The authors of these texts were both the main economists of the period and a host of obscurer scholars, philanthropists and school teachers. The amount of works published in this period of political unification reveals that in Italy there was a pervasive ‘need’ of political economy, considered as a discipline that could educate the younger generations destined to administrate the main institutions of the country, to orientate public opinion, and to enlighten the working classes.