This book comes highly commended, by its author, as a work that “sheds new light on Ricardian economics,” offers an interpretation based on “a solid reading of texts,” pays attention to “context,” and is sensitive to the nature and role of “speech utterances” (172–73). How far others will agree with this glowing assessment is another matter. What we are dealing with is a work of incontinent speculation, the construction of a world of “may-believe,” whereby the author convinces himself of the plausibility of ideas and influences that may have held sway over Ricardo, the paucity of supporting evidence regardless or, in cases where the evidence is disobliging, dismissed as “speech utterances” that cannot be taken literally. For this reviewer, the Ricardo who emerges is one who resides more in the author's imagination than the surviving historical record.
Cremaschi is convinced that Ricardo did not suffer from a “neglected education” (xii),...
