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Overview"Apostles of Inequality explores how changes to land use and ideas about political economy in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century England drove cottagers from the land and impoverished rural workers. Between 1760 and 1860, the English countryside was subject to constant attempts at agricultural improvement. Most often these meant depriving cottagers and rural workers of access to land they could cultivate, despite evidence that they were the most productive farmers in a country constantly short of food. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary sources, Apostles of Inequality argues that such attempts, driven by a flawed faith in the wonders of capital, did little to increase agricultural productivity and instead led to a century of increasing impoverishment in rural England. Jim Handy rejects the assertions about the benefits that accompanied the transition to ""improved"" agriculture and details the abundant evidence for the efficiency of smallholder, peasant agriculture. He traces the development of both economic theory and government policy through the work of agricultural improver Arthur Young (1741–1820), government advisor Nassau William Senior (1790–1864), and the editors and writers of the Economist, as well as Adam Smith and Thomas Robert Malthus. Apostles of Inequality demonstrates how a fascination with capital – promoted by political economy and farmers’ desires to have a labour force completely dependent on wage labour – fostered widespread destitution in rural England for over a century." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jim HandyPublisher: University of Toronto Press Imprint: University of Toronto Press Dimensions: Width: 15.90cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.540kg ISBN: 9781487563530ISBN 10: 1487563531 Pages: 302 Publication Date: 01 June 2022 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of Contents1. Introduction: “The Multiplication of Wretchedness” Part I: Arthur Young, the Agricultural Revolution, and the Spread of Poverty 2. “The Yoke of Improvement” 3. “The Enchantment of Property” 4. “A Rooted Hatred Between the Rich and the Poor” Part II: Political Economy and “the Great Lottery of Life” 5. Political Economy and the Rural Poor 6. Nassau Senior and the New Poor Laws Part III: The Economist and a Political Economy “Ordained by Providence” 7. The Economist: “The Most Elementary Truths” 8. Bad Farming: The Ghost of a Dead Monopoly 9. Ireland: “They Lie Beyond the Pale” 10. Cooked Land, Cotton, and Slavery 11. Conclusion: “The Home-made Civilization of the Rural English”ReviewsApostles of Inequality is another magnificent book by Jim Handy, who is rightly considered a 'historian of peasants.' Handy's narration is not merely of historical interest: it indirectly sheds light on much of what is happening in rural areas around the world today through land grabbing, famine, extreme exploitation and oppression, and the responses of migration and/or resistance. - Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, Professor Emeritus, Wageningen University, and Adjunct Professor, China Agricultural University Eloquent and engaged, this book describes how 'the fairy dust of political economy' legitimized the dispossession and impoverishment of small landholders on three continents. Aware of the productivity and sustainability of this land before the onslaught of capital began, and alert to attempts to resist it, this book is a powerful indictment of the view that we can make progress when we also create poverty. - Jeanette M. Neeson, Professor Emeritus of History, York University and author of Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820 In this timely, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking work, Jim Handy dissects the way the discourse in which capital is given an almost magical status was articulated, justified, and used as the basis for 'solutions' to all that ailed agricultural progress in Britain and her dominions. Drawing on the writings of Arthur Young, Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Nassau Senior, and the Economist, Handy artfully demonstrates, though, that a blind devotion to the 'pure principles' of political economy came at a wretched cost, and that the advocates of the power of capital became 'apostles of poverty' and even apologists for enslavement. - Carl Griffin, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex Apostles of Inequality is another magnificent book by Jim Handy, who is rightly considered a 'historian of peasants.' Handy's narration is not merely of historical interest: it indirectly sheds light on much of what is happening in rural areas around the world today through land grabbing, famine, extreme exploitation and oppression, and the responses of migration and/or resistance. - Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, Professor Emeritus, Wageningen University, and Adjunct Professor, China Agricultural University Eloquent and engaged, this book describes how 'the fairy dust of political economy' legitimized the dispossession and impoverishment of small landholders on three continents. Aware of the productivity and sustainability of this land before the onslaught of capital began, and alert to attempts to resist it, this book is a powerful indictment of the view that we can make progress when we also create poverty. - Jeanette M. Neeson, Professor Emeritus of History, York University and author of Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820 In this timely, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking work, Jim Handy dissects the way the discourse in which capital is given an almost magical status was articulated, justified, and used as the basis for 'solutions' to all that ailed agricultural progress in Britain and her dominions. Drawing on the writings of Arthur Young, Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Nassau Senior, and the Economist, Handy artfully demonstrates, though, that a blind devotion to the 'pure principles' of political economy came at a wretched cost, and that the advocates of the power of capital became 'apostles of poverty' and even apologists for enslavement. - Carl Griffin, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex Author InformationJim Handy is a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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