Abstract
Daniel Defoe was an English fervent supporter of trade: to him, trade was a natural feature of the English nation, and the English people were the best people at trading in the world. Indeed, in the 18th century, the State is a means to promote trade, the English empire is all about trade; the English nation works on trade, and that is a fact that was formulated by Napoleon in his phrase (talking about the English nation) "a nation of shopkeepers". So we see how critical commerce was in England at the beginning of the 18th century, and thus the importance of theories about trade at that time. Here, Defoe actually writes his theory about "Fine shops and fine shows", as the subtitle says, so he focuses on a precise type of commerce, that is to say shops, and explains how to arrange one's shop to make a good trade.
