And trade is so noble a master : Promoting and Censoring Commerce in 18th century British Encyclopaedias

In the 18th-century British encyclopaedias became an important vehicle to popularize knowledge, either theoretical or practical, as well as to promote the circulation of new ideas and social habits. One of the most represented disciplines to sustain British national-cultural identity is represented by ‘trade and commerce’: new products and new commodities, that is new ‘articles of traffic’, are discussed in detail in the single entries and magnified as the icon of a civilizing process. However, the promotion of certain aspects of British trade, (un)covers disturbing topics such as slave trade. The study investigates both how this ‘double track’ is dealt with in the encyclopaedias and commercial dictionaries and how the promotion and discussion of an aspect may be balanced by the censorial treatment of another.