ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Baron Montesquieu's theory of international relations combines a theory of a capitalist structure of international trade with a historical appreciation of the impossibility of projects of universal monarchy in Europe. In Montesquieu's view commerce had not developed steadily since antiquity. Trade first flourished in the Greek world under the rule of the Athenian Empire. Situated by the sea Athens naturally developed a mercantile economy. Its wealth derived from trade and its power from the ability to protect that trade and to colonize new areas for economic advantage. Montesquieu argued that the revival of trade in Europe owed much to certain key technological inventions. He used the Spanish colonial effort and its eventual failure to demonstrate the altered structure of international relations. Montesquieu is adamant that universal monarchy had no future in European politics. It was incompatible with the cosmopolitan ethic which had been developing among merchants and which the spread of commerce required.
