The body economic

Sample

Colin Winborn

"Though Jane Austen (1775-1817) and the poet George Crabbe (1754-1832) each wrote during the Napoleonic Wars, no full-length study has considered the importance of these pivotal events to their writing. In The Literary Economy of Jane Austen and George Crabbe, Colin Winborn argues that both writers were unusually responsive to the economic anxieties specific to wartime, occasioned especially by the Napoleonic trade embargo imposed on Britain from 1806 to 1812, and shared a particular concern with the economizing of space. Winborn's term 'spatial economy' refers to the practice of turning available resources to the best possible account, which these authors applied even to the practice of writing as they strove to preserve space on the page (Austen in her letters and Crabbe in the couplet). Their work displays a preoccupation with boundaries, pressure, and containment, which also informs economic treatises published during this period. Through close readings and fresh contextual and historical analysis that draws on the ideas of contemporary thinkers such as Thomas Malthus, William Spence, William Cobbett, Arthur Young, and Humphrey Repton, Winborn not only establishes a close affinity between Austen and Crabbe but makes a convincing case for rethinking the relationship between the novel and poetry during the Romantic period."--BOOK JACKET.

Sample

Tom Licence

"In this highly readable little book Tom Licence reveals how everyday objects, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed"--

Sample

Jessica Mitford

Three decades ago, Jessica Mitford became famous when she introduced us to the idiosyncracies of American funeral rites in The American Way of Death. Now in a book as fresh, provocative, and fearless as anything else she has written, she shows us how and in what circumstances Americans give birth. At the start, she knew no more of the subject, and not less, than any mother does. Recalling her experiences in the 1930s and 1940s of giving birth - in London, in Washington. D.C., and in Oakland, California - she observes, "A curious amnesia takes over in which all memory of the discomforts you have endured is wiped out, and your determination never, ever to do that again fast fades." But then, years later in 1989 - when her own children were adults, and birth a subject of no special interest to her - she meet a young woman, a midwife in Northern California who was being harassed by government agents and the medical establishment. Her. Sympathies, along with her reportorial instincts, were immediately stirred. There was a story there that needed to be explored and revealed. Far more than she anticipated then, she was at the beginning of an investigation that would lead her over the next three years to the writing of this extraordinary book. This is not a book about the miracle of life. It is about the role of money and politics in a lucrative industry; a saga of champagne birthing suites for the rich. And desperate measures for the poor. It is a colorful history - from the torture and burning of midwives in medieval times, through the absurd pretensions of the modest Victorian age, to this century's vast succession of anaesthetic, technological, and "natural" birthing fashions. And it is a comprehensive indictment of the politics of birth and national health. Jessica Mitford explores conventional and alternative methods, and the costs of having a child. She gives. Flesh-and-blood meaning to the cold statistics. Daring to ask hard questions and skeptical of soft answers, her book is necessary reading for anyone contemplating childbirth, and for everyone fascinated by the follies of human activity. It may even bring about some salutary changes in the American way of birth.

Sample

Henry Clews

The definitive look at Wall Street in the 19th Century Perhaps the 19th century's best book on Wall Street, Fifty Years in Wall Street provides a fascinating look at the financial markets during a period of rapid economic expansion. Henry Clews was a giant figure in finance at that time, and his firsthand account brings this colorful era to life like never before. He reveals shocking stories of political and economic manipulation and how he helped bring down the mighty Boss Tweed. He writes eloquently about the madness of the markets and how the era's greatest speculators amassed their fortunes. This book provides an expansive view of Wall Street in an era of little regulation, rampant political corruption, and rapid financial change. Henry Clews was born in England in 1836 and emigrated to the United States in 1850. In 1859, he cofounded what became the second largest marketer of federal bonds during the Civil War. Later, he organized the "Committee of 70," which deposed the corrupt Tweed Ring in New York City, and served as an economic consultant to President Ulysses Grant.