Wealth and Life
Essays on the Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1848–1914

The history of the intellectual pursuits that shaped the understanding of Britain as an industrial society.

Donald Winch (Author)

9780521715393, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 February 2009

440 pages, 17 b/w illus.
22.7 x 15.1 x 2 cm, 0.69 kg

'In this wide-ranging yet tightly argued and frequently brilliant work, Donald Winch presents an intellectual history of British political economy, from 1848–1914. … Winch's work, which combines fine-grained detail and lapidary prose with not inconsiderable empathy for this subjects, is a worthy addition to this exchange. It represents if not the definitive, certainly a definitive intellectual history of British political economy, from 1848–1914. Historians of economics and literature alike will profit greatly from this book.' Storia del pensiero economico

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.

Prologue: economists and human beings
Part I. Mill's Principles: 1. Sentimental enemies, advanced intellects, and falling profits
2. Wild natural beauty, the religion of humanity, and unearned increments
Part II. Three Responses to Mill: 3. 'Poor cretinous wretch': Ruskin's antagonism
4. 'Last man of the ante-Mill period': Walter Bagehot
5. 'As much a matter of heart as head': Jevons's aversion
Part III. Free Exchange and Economic Socialism: 6. Louis Mallet and the philosophy of free exchange
7. Henry Sidgwick and economic socialism
Part IV. Foxwell and Marshall: 8. The old generation of political economists and the new
9. Wealth, wellbeing and the academic economist
Part V. Heretics and Professionals: 10. 'A composition of successive heresies': J. A. Hobson
11. Academic minds
Appendix: Mr Gradgrind and Jerusalem
Bibliographic abbreviations and notes.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], History of ideas [JFCX], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL]