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An entirely new English translation of the principal work by the German economist Friedrich List (1789-1846) that marked the first publication of the text in Britain. Originally published in German in 1841, the first English translation had been published in 1856 in Philadelphia, translated by G.A. Matile, and based on the 1851 French translation by Henri Richelot. In contrast, the present English translation by the British banker and Conservative Party politician Sampson Lloyd (1820-1889) was based on the German original.

List was one of the earliest and most severe critics of the classical school of political economy. List ‘denounced Adam Smith and his disciples as the “cosmopolitan school” and held that universal free trade was an ideal that could be achieved only in the far distant future. For the time being, he argued, each nation should foster the development of its own manufactures by import duties and even outright prohibitions. Only by such means could countries like Germany, Russia and the United States ever hope to achieve the industrial efficiency that would enable them to compete on equal terms with Britain.’ List never used the term “infant industry” but the infant industry argument is clearly what he had in mind because he specifically excluded agriculture from all his protectionist arguments and even conceded that global free trade was an ultimate desirable goal In recent times, List has been hailed not so much as a spokesman for protectionism as a champion of the ambitions of underdeveloped countries. No doubt he was one of the first to recognise the role of national power in the international division of labour and present-day advocates of the dependency school of economic development may legitimately regard him as a forerunner’ (Blaug, Great Economists before Keynes, pp. 129f).