ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the influence that the main streams of economic thought of the time – mercantilism and physiocracy – exerted on the transformation of Europe. It examines first of all the disintegration of Christian Europe, second, mercantilism and despotic absolutism in Westphalian Europe, and third, physiocracy and enlightened absolutism in Europe’s République des lettres. There were several factors that led to the change and disintegration of Christian Europe. First, economic and political factors. Second, geopolitical factors. Lastly, and above all, cultural factors. At the time of the rise of absolute monarchies, the contribution to the elaboration of a doctrine of Absolutism came not only from political thinkers. Mercantilism was a current of economic thought that partook of the dual movement of the disintegration of Christian Europe and the formation of a Europe of absolute monarchies.
