An End to Poverty?: A Historical Debate

Author:   Gareth Stedman Jones (c/o George Lucas at Inkwell Management)
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
ISBN:  

9780231137836


Pages:   288
Publication Date:   22 February 2008
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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An End to Poverty?: A Historical Debate


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Overview

In the 1790s, for the first time, reformers proposed bringing poverty to an end. Inspired by scientific progress, the promise of an international economy, and the revolutions in France and the United States, political thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Antoine-Nicolas Condorcet argued that all citizens could be protected against the hazards of economic insecurity. In An End to Poverty? Gareth Stedman Jones revisits this founding moment in the history of social democracy and examines how it was derailed by conservative as well as leftist thinkers. By tracing the historical evolution of debates concerning poverty, Stedman Jones revives an important, but forgotten strain of progressive thought. He also demonstrates that current discussions about economic issues -- downsizing, globalization, and financial regulation -- were shaped by the ideological conflicts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Paine and Condorcet believed that republicanism combined with universal pensions, grants to support education, and other social programs could alleviate poverty. In tracing the inspiration for their beliefs, Stedman Jones locates an unlikely source-Adam Smith.Paine and Condorcet believed that Smith's vision of a dynamic commercial society laid the groundwork for creating economic security and a more equal society. But these early visions of social democracy were deemed too threatening to a Europe still reeling from the traumatic aftermath of the French Revolution and increasingly anxious about a changing global economy. Paine and Condorcet were demonized by Christian and conservative thinkers such as Burke and Malthus, who used Smith's ideas to support a harsher vision of society based on individualism and laissez-faire economics. Meanwhile, as the nineteenth century wore on, thinkers on the left developed more firmly anticapitalist views and criticized Paine and Condorcet for being too bourgeois in their thinking. Stedman Jones however, argues that contemporary social democracy should take up the mantle of these earlier thinkers, and he suggests that the elimination of poverty need not be a utopian dream but may once again be profitably made the subject of practical, political, and social-policy debates.

Full Product Details

Author:   Gareth Stedman Jones (c/o George Lucas at Inkwell Management)
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
Imprint:   Columbia University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 12.70cm , Height: 1.70cm , Length: 19.70cm
Weight:   0.283kg
ISBN:  

9780231137836


ISBN 10:   0231137834
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   22 February 2008
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.
Language:   English

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Reviews

An End to Poverty?... offers an excitingly redrawn map of intellectual history. It also makes a powerful case about our political present and future. -- Stephen Howe The Independent [ An End to Poverty? is] a marvelous intellectual history of the debate over ending poverty, especially during the Enlightenment era of the 1790s. -- Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty [Stedman Jones] produces an argument that is not only powerful in its own right but should act as an inspiration and provocation to others. History Today Jones enables us to understand that... the Enlightenment produced one of the truly radical inventions in the history of human thought. -- Stein Ringen The Times Literary Supplement 6/24/05 Jones offers a lucid, erudite exploration of a fertile topic in European intellectual history. Publishers Weekly 8/15/05 [A] well-written and intelligent book. -- Peter Jelavich Journal of Interdisciplinary History Spring 2007


An End to Poverty?... offers an excitingly redrawn map of intellectual history. It also makes a powerful case about our political present and future. -- Stephen Howe The Independent [ An End to Poverty? is] a marvelous intellectual history of the debate over ending poverty, especially during the Enlightenment era of the 1790s. -- Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty [Stedman Jones] produces an argument that is not only powerful in its own right but should act as an inspiration and provocation to others. History Today Jones enables us to understand that... the Enlightenment produced one of the truly radical inventions in the history of human thought. -- Stein Ringen The Times Literary Supplement Jones offers a lucid, erudite exploration of a fertile topic in European intellectual history. Publishers Weekly [A] well-written and intelligent book. -- Peter Jelavich Journal of Interdisciplinary History


An End to Poverty?... offers an excitingly redrawn map of intellectual history. It also makes a powerful case about our political present and future. -- Stephen Howe, The Independent [ An End to Poverty? is] a marvelous intellectual history of the debate over ending poverty, especially during the Enlightenment era of the 1790s. -- Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty [Stedman Jones] produces an argument that is not only powerful in its own right but should act as an inspiration and provocation to others. -- History Today Jones enables us to understand that... the Enlightenment produced one of the truly radical inventions in the history of human thought. -- Stein Ringen, The Times Literary Supplement Jones offers a lucid, erudite exploration of a fertile topic in European intellectual history. -- Publishers Weekly [A] well-written and intelligent book. -- Peter Jelavich, Journal of Interdisciplinary History


Author Information

Gareth Stedman Jones is professor of political science at Cambridge University, a fellow of King's College, and director of the Centre for History and Economics. His works include Outcast London (1971), Languages of Class (1983), and Charles Fourier, The Theory of the Four Movements (1996).

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