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 (more…)

A portion of McCloskey’s (June ’09 draft version of) Bourgeois Dignity is chosen for discussion on the NEP-HIS (New Economic Papers in History) blog. See “Growth, Quality, Happiness, and the Poor.”

Abstract from Gustavo Morles’s (28 Feb. 2010 draft version of) “The Rhetoric of Economics: Why Words are Important”: By looking at historical evidence McCloskey concludes that the great transformation of the Industrial Revolution was made possible by the change in attitudes, reflected ultimately in the change in rhetoric, towards bourgeois values. This paper explores the (more…)

Original entry » || Excerpt: Taking a note from that page, Deirdre N. McCloskey, sage of the history of capitalism, opens The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce by exploring Vargas Llosa’s thoughts on globalization: Globalization extends radically to all citizens of this planet the possibility to construct their individual cultural identities through (more…)

An amusing conversation from “Marginal Revolution” triggered by the debut of Bourgeois Dignity.

See “Resolve to read a business book,” Chicago Tribune, 10 December 2010.

Aviation industry consultants:“Innovation — the Great Engine of Prosperity” Steven Horwitz, prof. of economics, on taking a week-long cruise (“See You After Christmas”): There will be no blogging aboard ship. Not even any commenting. In a world of sunshine, warm temps, casino gambling, and zero marginal cost food, blogging doesn’t make the “to-do” list. (Reading (more…)

From Julie Kirsten Novak’s blog, Free Market Liberal, 16 November 2009: The American economic historian and all-round champion of free markets, Deirdre McCloskey, has written a follow-up volume to her 2006 masterpiece, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (no less an authority in economics, Peter Boettke, said this about The Bourgeois Virtues: (more…)