This chapter looks at the historical understanding of political economy. It also describes the transformation of political economy as a general understanding of wealth and its distribution to a new science of economics. This transition can be linked to the expanding system of public education during the later end of the nineteenth century and the reorganisation of university life around teaching and research in modern subjects. The movement for wider access to higher education was associated with the formation of new university subjects in the humanities. Among these modern subjects, commerce and economics were prominent as new disciplines of study relevant to the modern world.
