Description:A comprehensive interpretation of one of Great Britain's most wide-ranging and prolific authors, this book examines Daniel Defoe's capacity to perceive fundamental historical change and long-term social process in light of his observations on liberty, property, trade, warfare, religion, and manners. It establishes Defoe as the crucial figure between the age of John Locke and the age of Smith and Hume in the evolution of eighteenth-century theories about commerce and conquest, religious toleration, and civil society.