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== '''[[History of economic thought]]''' ==
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''by  [[User:Nick Gardner|Nick Gardner]], [[User:João Prado Ribeiro Campos|João Prado Ribeiro Campos]] and [[User:Richard Jensen|Richard Jensen]]
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==Footnotes==
 
Modern economic thought is generally considered to have originated in the late eighteenth century with the work of [[David Hume]] and [[Adam Smith]], and the foundation of classical economics. (Earlier approaches are described in the article on the [[History of pre-classical economic thought]].) The  nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw major developments in the methodology and scope of economic theory.
 
Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century economists applied deductive reasoning to axioms considered to be self-evident and to simplifying assumptions which were thought to capture the essential features of economic activity.  That methodology yielded concepts such as [[elasticity]] and [[utility]], tools such as marginal analysis, and theorems such as the law of [[comparative advantage]].  An extension of the relationships governing transactions between consumers and producers was considered to provide all that was necessary to understand the behaviour of the national economy.
 
The development, in the later 20th century, of systems of [[economic statistics]] enabled economists to use inductive reasoning to test theoretical findings against observed economic behaviour and to develop new theories. By that time, the concept had emerged of the national economy as an open interactive system, and analysis of that concept provided explanations of [[recession|recessions]], [[unemployment]] and [[inflation]] that were not previously available. The application of empirical data and inductive reasoning enabled those theories to be refined and led to the development of forecasting models that could be used as tools of economic management.
 
The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen further theoretical and empirical refinements and significant advances in the techniques of economic management.
 
===Overview: categories of economic thought===
Historians categorise economic thought into “periods” and “schools” and tend to attribute each  innovation to one individual.  This categorization is helpful for the purpose of exposition, although the reality has been a story of interwoven intellectual threads in which advances attributed to particular individuals or schools have often prompted the work of others.  For example, the quantity theory of money, which achieved prominence in the twentieth century and is associated with Milton Friedman, was first formulated at least three centuries earlier.  Many of those threads that have  permeated  the categories referred to as "Classical economics" and "Neoclassical economics"&mdash;such as the concept of value and the nature of economic growth&mdash;had an earlier origin in "Pre-classical economics" (see [[History of pre-classical economic thought]]).  "Classical" in economics denotes the adoption in the late eighteenth century of an approach that was inspired by the enlightenment and the methodology of the physical sciences, and had abandoned previous examinations of economics in terms of ethics, religion and politics.  Preoccupation with those threads was overshadowed in the twentieth century by the responses of [[Keynesianism]] and [[monetarism]] to the problems of unemployment and [[inflation]], but the development of neoclassical economics started before that time and has continued thereafter.  (The boundary between the "classical" and "neoclassical" categories is marked mainly by the  rejuvenation of the value thread by the concept of [[utility]] and the associated explanation of price in terms of "[[supply and demand]]".)  The introduction of new tools of exploration has since led to the vigorous development of that and other threads, and an expansion in the scope of economics into many new directions.
 
''[[History of economic thought|.... (read more)]]''
 
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Latest revision as of 10:19, 11 September 2020

Napoleon (Napoleon Bonaparte or, after 1804, Napoleon I, Emperor of the French) was a world historic figure and dictator of France from 1799 to 1814. He was the greatest general of his age--perhaps any age, with a sure command of battlefield tactics and campaign strategies, As a civil leader he played a major role in the French Revolution, then ended it when he became dictator in 1799 and Emperor of France in 1804 He modernized the French military, fiscal, political legal and religious systems. He fought an unending series of wars against Britain with a complex, ever-changing coalition of European nations on both sides. Refusing to compromise after his immense defeat in Russia in 1812, he was overwhelmed by a coalition of enemies and abdicated in 1814. In 1815 he returned from exile, took control of France, built a new army, and in 100 days almost succeeded--but was defeated at Waterloo and exiled to a remote island. His image and memory are central to French national identity, but he is despised by the British and Russians and is a controversial figure in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

The Trail of Napoleon - J.F. Horrabin - Map.jpg

Rise to Power

Once the Revolution had begun, so many of the aristocratic officers turned against the Revolutionary government, or were exiled or executed, that a vacuum of senior leadership resulted. Promotions came very quickly now, and loyalty to the Revolution was as important as technical skill; Napoleon had both. His demerits were overlooked as he was twice reinstated, promoted, and allowed to collect his back pay. Paris knew him as an intellectual soldier deeply involved in politics. His first test of military genius came at Toulon in 1793, where the British had seized this key port. Napoleon, an acting Lieutenant-Colonel, used his artillery to force the British to abandon the city. He was immediately promoted by the Jacobin radicals under Robespierre to brigadier-general, joining the ranks of several brilliant young generals. He played a major role in defending Paris itself from counter-revolutionaries, and became the operational planner for the Army of Italy and planned two successful attacks in April 1794. He married Josephine (Rose de Beauharnais) in 1796, after falling violently in love with the older aristocratic widow.[1]

Footnotes

  1. Englund pp 63-73, 91-2, 97-8