Sismondi, Jean Charles

sis-mon'di, Jean Charles (1773-1842), a Swiss writer of note. He was a native of Geneva. His father was a well-to-do French Huguenot. The Sismondis were driven from Geneva, and the family property confiscated. Young Sismondi resided in England and Italy, and later became one of the coterie of persons attendant on Madame de Stael. He wrote voluminously. A treatise on practical agriculture was his first published work. Principles of Political Economy Applied to Commerce appeared in 1803. His History of the Italian Republics in sixteen volumes is standard. He prolonged a History of the French to thirty-one volumes and left it unfinished. Sismondi was a man of character and affability--a writer of great industry. He overrated the value of his work, but was never arrogant. As a historian he ranks with Rollin.