Economy, polity, and society : British intellectual history, 1750-1950

Economy, Polity, and Society and its companion volume History, Religion, and Culture bring together major new essays on British intellectual history by many of the leading scholars of the period, continuing a mode of enquiry for which Donald Winch and John Burrow have been widely celebrated. This volume addresses aspects of the eighteenth-century attempt, particularly in the work of Adam Smith, to come to grips with the nature of 'commercial society' and its distinctive notions of the self, of political liberty, and of economic progress. It then explores the adaptations of and responses to the Enlightenment legacy in the work of such early nineteenth-century figures as Jeremy Bentham, Tom Paine and Maria Edgeworth. Finally, in discussions which range up to the middle of the twentieth century, the volume examines particularly telling examples of the conflict between economic thinking and moral values.

Two volumes containing new essays by leading scholars in modern British intellectual history.

History Magazine - Peter Ghosh

At some point in the future historians will look back and mock the fin-de-millenium for its remorseless preoccupation with questions of culture, language and identity, just as we today look down upon the vulgar materialism and economism which we see informing so much of the historical scholarship of the years 1920-70. But though they may mock, the more discerning of our successors will want to read this unusual, but entirely appropriate, double Festschrift in honour of John Burrow and Donald Winch, because their works have formed one of the most important strands in the remarkable renascence of the history of ideas in late twentieth-century Britain, alongside those of their near contemporary Quentin Skinner. And the historian of the future will certainly want to enquire into the connection between this renascence, which began in the 1960s, and the wholescale historiographical migration into the realms of culture and language in the 1980s.

Economy, Polity and Society and its companion volume History, Religion and Culture aim to bring together new essays by many of the leading intellectual historians of the period. The essays in Economy, Polity and Society begin by addressing aspects of the eighteenth-century attempt, particularly in the work of Adam Smith, to come to grips with the nature of "commercial society" and its distinctive notions of the self, of political liberty, and of economic progress. They then explore the adaptations of and responses to the Enlightenment legacy in the work of such early nineteenth-century figures as Jeremy Bentham, Tom Paine, Maria Edgeworth and Richard Whately. Finally, in discussions that range up to the middle of the twentieth century, they explore particularly telling examples of the conflict between economic thinking and moral values. These two volumes contain essays by many of the leading scholars in modern British intellectual history, covering a wide range of topics and thinkers. They all draw upon new research, but are written in a clear, readable style that will make them accessible to a wide spectrum of readers. When the anthropologist Marcel Mauss was invited to give the 1938 Huxley Memorial Lecture, he chose for his subject 'A Category of the Human Mind: the Notion of Person; the Notion of Self'. This text and its companion volume, History, Religion and Culture bring together major essays on British intellectual history by many of the leading scholars of the period Edited By Stefan Collini, Richard Whatmore, Brian Young. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.