McCloskey releases draft of “Bourgeois Dignity”
Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Industrial Revolution (330 pp.)
Introduction and Table of Contents only (20 pp.)
Note to readers:
The February 2009 version is a 100,000-word manuscript, with lots of rough edges. You have some of the front matter and the Introduction, which will give you an idea. The full manuscript is also available, and I invite you to sample it. The embarrassingly many places where big and little tasks remain to be done are signaled by three asterisks, < ***>. I’m anxiously expecting that you’ll discover many, many more. Please do tell: at deirdre2@uic.edu or leave a comment below.
The story, as the title says, is that economics of the usual sort can’t explain the Industrial Revolution, and especially that it can’t explain its enriching and inspiriting follow-on. The book examines the holes in the materialist explanations, finding that the Industrial Revolution was not caused by trade, investment, institutions, exploitation. Not, not , not. What then? This volume merely gestures at the “bourgeois dignity” of the title, a “Bourgeois Revaluation” of the 18th century. The theme is explored more deeply in the two volumes to follow.
