ABSTRACT
Friedrich List’s ideas – which recent research has identified as important for modern economic growth and current issues in development and – were neither new nor particularly original at the time he wrote them down. He merely supplied the capstone towards a building of theory whose construction had started long ago but which was now to be made fit for late-comers in an age of industrialization. The purpose of this chapter is to sketch the broad outlines of this age-old discourse, to test it against the empirical economic record, so as to demonstrate, by ways of a brief conclusion, the common ground List shared with his ancestors that had come before him. The chapter makes a very modest contribution, by sketching out the idea of the prominence of manufacturing in European economic discourse from Italian writer Giovanni Botero to Friedrich List.
