From Political Economy to Economics through Nineteenth-Century Literature

Focusing on the transition from political economy to economics, this volume seeks to restore social content to economic abstractions through readings of nineteenth-century British and American literature. The essays gathered here, by new as well as established scholars of literature and economics, link important nineteenth-century texts and histories with present-day issues such as exploitation, income inequality, globalization, energy consumption, property ownership and rent, human capital, corporate power, and environmental degradation. Organized according to key concepts for future research, the collection has a clear interdisciplinary, humanities approach and international reach.  These diverse essays will interest students and scholars in literature, history, political science, economics, sociology, law, and cultural studies, in addition to readers generally interested in the Victorian period.

Chapter 1: Introduction Reclaiming the Social, Elaine Hadley, Audrey Jaffe, and Sarah Winter.- Chapter 2: Human Capital Becker the Obscure: Human Capital Theory, Victorian Liberalisms, and the Future of Higher Education, Elaine Hadley.- Chapter 3: Exploitation On the Use and Abuse of the Nineteenth Century: Towards a Genealogy of Exploitation, Zachary Samalin.- Chapter 4: Slavery Forgetting Cairnes: The Slave Power and the Political Economy of Racism, Gordon Bigelow.- Chapter 5: Expansion Expansion in the Fossil Economy and Craik’s John Halifax, Gentleman, Ayşe Çelikkol.- Chapter 6: Sustainability Sustainability & Its Discontents: The View from the Nineteenth Century, Deanna K. Kreisel.- Chapter 7: Rent “When a House is So Much More”: Character, Tenancy, and Property in Victorian Fiction,Audrey Jaffe Chapter 8: Corporation The Zero-Sum Game of Corporate Personhood, Clare Eby.- Chapter 9: Choice Narrating Choice in Later Nineteenth-Century Novels and Neoclassical Economics, Amanpal Garcha.- Chapter 10: Global Inequality Documenting Globalization in Rural India: The Conflation of the “Freedom of the Market” with The “Freedom of the Person” in The New York Times, Mukti Lakhi Mangharam.- Chapter 11: Equity Henry Mayhew and Thomas Piketty on Equity and Inequality, Sarah Winter.