Donald Winch - Böcker

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was an English cleric whose ideas, as expounded in his most famous work the Essay on the Principle of Population, caused a storm of controversy. In this Very Short Introduction, Donald Winch explains and clarifies Malthus's ideas, assessing the profound influence he has had on modern economic thought. Concentrating on his writings, Winch sheds light on the context in which he wrote and why his work has remained controversial. Looking at Malthus's early life as well as the evolution of his theories from population to political economy, Winch considers why and how Malthus's writings have been so influential in the thought of later figures such as Darwin and Keynes. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The experience of the Economic Advisory Council provides the relevant policy background to the Keynesian revolution in economic theory, and to the adoption of the principles of economic management in Britain during the Second World War. This study of this pioneering advisory institution against the inter-war setting of depression, financial crisis and recovery is based on government records, supplemented by other contemporary sources. The book deals with the political and economic origins of the E.A.C. in the post-1918 decade; the role of the Council and its committees of inquiry as the world slump began to make an impact on an already depressed British economy; and the part played by individual economic advisers in the dramatic events which led to the fall of the second Labour Government and Britain's departure from the gold standard in 1931. Throughout the nineteenthirties the work of the Council was carried on by the Committee on Economic Information, which helped to provide the National Government with solutions to the complex and novel problems of a post-gold standard world. In addition to assessing the significance of the E.A.C. experiment, the book reprints a number of reports and gives a guide to the relevant documents in the public archives.

The experience of the Economic Advisory Council provides the relevant policy background to the Keynesian revolution in economic theory, and to the adoption of the principles of economic management in Britain during the Second World War. This study of this pioneering advisory institution against the inter-war setting of depression, financial crisis and recovery is based on government records, supplemented by other contemporary sources. The book deals with the political and economic origins of the E.A.C. in the post-1918 decade; the role of the Council and its committees of inquiry as the world slump began to make an impact on an already depressed British economy; and the part played by individual economic advisers in the dramatic events which led to the fall of the second Labour Government and Britain's departure from the gold standard in 1931. Throughout the nineteenthirties the work of the Council was carried on by the Committee on Economic Information, which helped to provide the National Government with solutions to the complex and novel problems of a post-gold standard world. In addition to assessing the significance of the E.A.C. experiment, the book reprints a number of reports and gives a guide to the relevant documents in the public archives.

In this unusual and important work, three well-known historians of ideas examine the diverse forms taken in nineteenth-century Britain by the aspiration to develop what was then known as a 'science of politics'. This aspiration encompassed a more extensive and ambitious range of concerns than is implied by the modern term 'political science': in fact, as this book demonstrates, it remained the overarching category under which many nineteenth-century thinkers grouped their attempts to achieve systematic understanding of man's common life. As a result of both the over-concentration on closed abstract systems of thought and the intrusion of concerns which pervade much writing in the history of political theory and of the social sciences, these attempts have since been neglected or misrepresented. By deliberately avoiding such approaches, this book restores the subject to its centrality in the intellectual life and political culture of nineteenth-century Britain.

For most of the two hundred years or so that have passed since the publication of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith's writings on political and economic questions have been viewed within a liberal capitalist perspective of nineteenth- and twentieth- century provenance. This essay in interpretation seeks to provide a more historical reading of certain political themes which recur in Smith's writings by bringing eighteenth-century perspectives to bear on the problem. Contrary to the view that sees Smith's work as marking the point at which 'politics' was being eclipsed by 'economics', it claims that Smith has a 'politics' which goes beyond certain political attitudes connected with the role of the state in economic affairs. It argues that he employs a consistent mode of political analysis which cannot be encompassed within the standard liberal capitalist categories, but can be understood by reference to the language and qualities of contemporary political debate, and of the eighteenth-century science of politics cultivated by Montesquieu and, above all, Hume, particularly as revealed by recent scholarship. A concluding chapter draws the various strands of the interpretation together to form a portrait of what Smith might legitimately be said to have been doing when he wrote on these matters.

This 1992 volume makes available to a student audience one of the most controversial and misunderstood works published during the last two hundred years. Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population began life in 1798 as a polite attack on some post-French-revolutionary speculations on the theme of social and human perfectibility. It remains one of the most powerful statements of the limits to human hopes set by the tension between population growth and natural resources. This edition is based on the authoritative variorum of the mature versions of the Essay published over the period 1803 to 1826. The introduction, notes and bibliographic apparatus are aimed specifically at a modern audience interested in how Malthusianism impinges on the history of political thought.

This 1992 volume makes available to a student audience one of the most controversial and misunderstood works published during the last two hundred years. Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population began life in 1798 as a polite attack on some post-French-revolutionary speculations on the theme of social and human perfectibility. It remains one of the most powerful statements of the limits to human hopes set by the tension between population growth and natural resources. This edition is based on the authoritative variorum of the mature versions of the Essay published over the period 1803 to 1826. The introduction, notes and bibliographic apparatus are aimed specifically at a modern audience interested in how Malthusianism impinges on the history of political thought.

In Riches and Poverty, Donald Winch explores the implications of a fundamental and influential idea in political economy. Adam Smith's science of the legislator provided a key to studying the rich and poor in commercial societies, transformed an ancient debate on luxury and inequality, and furnished a basis for assessing the American and French revolutions. Against this background, Britain embarked on its career as the first manufacturing nation, and Malthus made his first contributions to a debate which concluded with the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Malthus provoked fierce opposition from the Lake poets, opening an intellectual rift that persisted throughout the nineteenth century and continues to influence our perceptions of cultural history. Donald Winch has written a compelling and consistently-argued narrative of these developments, which emphasises throughout the moral and political bearings of economic ideas.

Donald Winch completes the intellectual history of political economy begun in Riches and Poverty (1996). A major theme addressed in both volumes is the 'bitter argument between economists and human beings' provoked by Britain's industrial revolution. Winch takes the argument from Mill's contributions to the 'condition-of-England' debate in 1848 through to the work on economic wellbeing of Alfred Marshall. The writings of major figures of the period are examined in a sequence of interlinked essays that ends with consideration of the twentieth-century fate of the debate between utilitarians and romantics in the hands of Leavis, Williams and Thompson. Donald Winch is one of Britain's most distinguished historians of ideas, and Wealth and Life brings to fruition a long-standing interest in the history of those intellectual pursuits that have shaped the understanding of Britain as an industrial society, and continue to influence cultural responses to the moral questions posed by economic life.

Donald Winch completes the intellectual history of political economy begun in Riches and Poverty (1996). A major theme addressed in both volumes is the 'bitter argument between economists and human beings' provoked by Britain's industrial revolution. Winch takes the argument from Mill's contributions to the 'condition-of-England' debate in 1848 through to the work on economic wellbeing of Alfred Marshall. The writings of major figures of the period are examined in a sequence of interlinked essays that ends with consideration of the twentieth-century fate of the debate between utilitarians and romantics in the hands of Leavis, Williams and Thompson. Donald Winch is one of Britain's most distinguished historians of ideas, and Wealth and Life brings to fruition a long-standing interest in the history of those intellectual pursuits that have shaped the understanding of Britain as an industrial society, and continue to influence cultural responses to the moral questions posed by economic life.