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"Great Britain -- Economic conditions -- 19th century"
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The body economic
The Body Economic revises the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Britain by demonstrating that political economists and the writers who often presented themselves as their literary antagonists actually held most of their basic social assumptions in common. Catherine Gallagher demonstrates that political economists and their Romantic and early-Victorian critics jointly relocated the idea of value from the realm of transcendent spirituality to that of organic \"life,\" making human sensations--especially pleasure and pain--the sources and signs of that value. Classical political economy, this book shows, was not a mechanical ideology but a form of nineteenth-century organicism, which put the body and its feelings at the center of its theories, and neoclassical economics built itself even more self-consciously on physiological premises. The Body Economic explains how these shared views of life, death, and sensation helped shape and were modified by the two most important Victorian novelists: Charles Dickens and George Eliot. It reveals how political economists interacted crucially with the life sciences of the nineteenth century--especially with psychophysiology and anthropology--producing the intellectual world that nurtured not only George Eliot's realism but also turn-of-the-century literary modernism.
eBook
The Memoirs of Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) was a prominent English journalist, banker, and man of letters. For many years he was editor ofThe Economist, and to this day the magazine includes a weekly \"Bagehot\" column. His analyses of politics, economics, and public affairs were nothing short of brilliant. Sadly, he left no memoir.
How, then, does this book bear the title,The Memoirs of Walter Bagehot? Frank Prochaska explains, \"Given my longstanding interest in Bagehot's life and times, I decided to compose a memoir on his behalf.\" And so, in this imaginative reconstruction of the memoir Bagehot might have written, Prochaska assumes his subject's voice, draws on his extensive writings (Bagehot'sCollected Worksfill 15 volumes), and scrupulously avoids what Bagehot considered that most unpardonable of faults-dullness.
A faux autobiography allows for considerable license, but Prochaska remains true to Bagehot's character and is accurate in his depiction of the times. The memoir immerses us in the spirit of the Victorian era and makes us wish to have known Walter Bagehot. He is, Prochaska observes, the Victorian with whom we would most want to have dinner.
eBook
Heroes of invention : technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750-1914
This is an innovative study of why inventors rose to heroic stature and popular acclaim in Victorian Britain.
Book
Industrialisation and Society
Indusrialisation and Society provides an essential introduction to the effects of industrialisation on British society, from Queen Victoria's reign to the birth of the welfare state in the 1940s.This book deals with the remarkable social consequences of the industrial revolution, as Britain changed into an urban society based on industry. As the first nation to undergo an industrial revolution, Britain was also the first to deal with the unprecedented social problems of rapid urbanisation combined with an unparalleled growth in population.Industrialisation and Society looks at contemporary ways in which the government and ordinary people tried to cope with these new pressures, and studies their reactions to the unforseen consequences of the steam revolution. In particular, this indispensable book considers:* the Victorian inheritance* Edwardian England and the Liberal reforms* the two world wars* the Welfare State.
eBook
‘Merely for Money’?
In 1780 Richard Sheridan noted that merchants worked 'merely for money'. However, rather than being a criticism, this was recognition of the important commercial role that merchants played in the British empire at this time. Of course, merchants desired and often made profits, but they were strictly bound by commonly-understood socio-cultural norms which formed a private-order institution of a robust business culture. In order to elucidate this business culture, this book examines the themes of risk, trust, reputation, obligation, networks and crises to demonstrate how contemporary merchants perceived and dealt with one another and managed their businesses. Merchants were able to take risks and build trust, but concerns about reputation and fulfilling obligations constrained economic opportunism. By relating these themes to an array of primary sources from ports around the British-Atlantic world, this book provides a more nuanced understanding of business culture during this period. A theme which runs throughout the book is the mercantile community as a whole and its relationship with the state. This was an important element in the British business culture of this period, although this relationship came under stress towards the end of period, forming a crisis in itself. This book argues that the business culture of the British-Atlantic mercantile community not only facilitated the conduct of day-to-day business, but also helped it to cope with short-term crises and long-term changes. This facilitated the success of the British-Atlantic economy even within the context of changing geo-politics and an under-institutionalised environment. Not working 'merely for money' was a successful business model.
eBook
The industrial revolution : the state, knowledge and global trade
\"The British Industrial Revolution has long been seen as the spark for modern, global industrialization and sustained economic growth. Indeed the origins of economic history, as a discipline, lie in 19th-century European and North American attempts to understand the foundation of this process. In this book, William J. Ashworth questions some of the orthodoxies concerning the history of the industrial revolution and offers a deep and detailed reassessment of the subject that focuses on the State and its role in the development of key British manufactures. In particular, he explores the role of State regulation and protectionism in nurturing Britain's negligible early manufacturing base. Taking a long view, from the mid 17th century through to the 19th century, the analysis weaves together a vast range of factors to provide one of the fullest analyses of the industrial revolution, and one that places it firmly within a global context, showing that the Industrial Revolution was merely a short moment within a much larger and longer global trajectory. This book is an important intervention in the debates surrounding modern industrial history will be essential reading for anyone interested in global and comparative economic history and the history of globalization.\"--Cover page 4
Book
Britain and Empire, 1880-1945
Britain and Empire, 1880-1945 traces the relationship between Britain and its empire during a period when the two spheres intersected with one another to an unprecedented degree. The story starts with the imperial expansion of the late nineteenth century and ends with the Second World War, at the end of which Britain was on the brink of decolonisation.
The author shows how empire came to figure into almost every important development that marked Britain¿s response to the upheavals of the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. He examines its influence on foreign policy, party politics, social reforms, cultural practices, and national identity. At the same time, he shows how domestic developments affected imperial policies.
Written in an engaging and accessible manner, this book:
integrates British and imperial history in a single narrative
provides a useful synthesis of recent historical research in the area
analyses topics ranging from ideology and culture to politics and foreign affairs
contains a chronology, glossary, who¿s who and guide to further reading
Britain and Empire, 1880-1945 provides an up-to-date, accessible survey, ideal for students coming to the subject for the first time.
eBook