This book uses archival and published sources to place Say in context, at the confluence of several major currents in social philosophy. The Say that emerges from this study is far from being the one dimensional popularizer of Smith and proponent of libertarian ideology that he is often depicted as. Rather he is an eighteenth-century republican trying to knit togther support for free markets and industrial development with a profound respect for the importance of the legislator, the administrator and the educator in the creation and maintenance of civil society