This course examines the history of virtue in the context of the expanding global economy from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. The course follows the growth of the European economy from the Italian Peninsula in the sixteenth century to the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, the development of colonial and worldwide economies in the eighteenth century, and the process of industrialization in the nineteenth century. It tracks the changing understandings of virtue and commerce through the writings of leading theorists of the day, including James Harrington, Bernard Mandeville, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Max Weber.