Newbie question here.
The goal: For an alternate history in which Enlightenment thought is dominated by the French Enlightenment, and rationalism and physiocracy are considered liberalism and classical economics rather than our-time-line's use of those words to label empiricism and capitalism respectively.
My theory: The way to do this is to derail the Scottish and English Enlightenment's, so that revolutions in the Americas (and liberalism in the Atlantic world in general) are more influenced by French thought than in our-time-line.
If you can think of a better way to accomplish this than my theory of derailing the Scottish Enlightenment, or of a single Point-of-Divergence that could do much to derail the popularization of the philosophies of Hume and Adam Smith, it would be greatly appreciated.
I'm of the pick your result and then work backwards school of althist, so how best might one have an alternate-time-line American Revolution that results in a physiocratic republic and a rationalist, French-thinking elite?
And for bonus points, if the liberals are agrarian rationalists rejecting the division of labor and empirical observation, how might reactionaries and anti-republican forces incorporate empiricism and industrial economics into conservatism and/or absolutism?
The goal: For an alternate history in which Enlightenment thought is dominated by the French Enlightenment, and rationalism and physiocracy are considered liberalism and classical economics rather than our-time-line's use of those words to label empiricism and capitalism respectively.
My theory: The way to do this is to derail the Scottish and English Enlightenment's, so that revolutions in the Americas (and liberalism in the Atlantic world in general) are more influenced by French thought than in our-time-line.
If you can think of a better way to accomplish this than my theory of derailing the Scottish Enlightenment, or of a single Point-of-Divergence that could do much to derail the popularization of the philosophies of Hume and Adam Smith, it would be greatly appreciated.
I'm of the pick your result and then work backwards school of althist, so how best might one have an alternate-time-line American Revolution that results in a physiocratic republic and a rationalist, French-thinking elite?
And for bonus points, if the liberals are agrarian rationalists rejecting the division of labor and empirical observation, how might reactionaries and anti-republican forces incorporate empiricism and industrial economics into conservatism and/or absolutism?