The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy 1815-1848


Book Description

Dr Berg argues that technical change was one of the foremost theoretical concerns of Ricardo and his successors, and the foundation for their distinctly optimistic view of the future. She shows how the Machinery Question fostered the social conditions in which the status of Political Economy as a discipline was established, and concludes that by the 1840s the divisions over machinery were firmly embedded in the great rival creeds of the future, liberalism and socialism.
















The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity takes as its subject the beliefs, practices, and institutions of the Christian Church between 400 and 1500AD. It addresses topics ranging from early medieval monasticism to late medieval mysticism, from the material wealth of the Church to the spiritual exercises through which certain believers might attempt to improve their souls. Each chapter tells a story, but seeks also to ask how and why 'Christianity' took particular forms at particular moments in history, paying attention to both the spiritual and otherwordly aspects of religion, and the material and political contexts in which they were often embedded. This Handbook is a landmark academic collection that presents cutting-edge interpretive perspectives on medieval religion for a wide academic audience, drawing together thirty key scholars in the field from the United States, the UK, and Europe. Notably, the Handbook is arranged thematically, and focusses on an analytical, rather than narrative, approach, seeking to demonstrate the variety, change, and complexity of religion throughout this long period, and the numerous different ways in which modern scholarship can approach it. While providing a very wide-ranging view of the subject, it also offers an important agenda for further study in the field.




Challenging Religious Studies


Book Description

This book represents a breakthrough in our understanding and development of the practices, ethics and theories of religious studies through engagement with the world of daily life and its breath-taking transformation since 1800, as revealed particularly in living standards, life expectancy and subjective wellbeing. Together with the equally disturbing growth of inequalities between and within nations, this constitutes the profound paradox of development. What is of particular interest is the book’s rigorous treatment of the question why religion is better at delivering greater subjective wellbeing and how it does so. To build such arguments always involves engaging with key related disciplines, experiences and practices, including economics, psychology, sociology and economic history. But it will also increasingly offer religion the opportunity to participate in such developments but always and increasingly through collaboration with other such disciplines and experiences, and always with the objective of furthering the greater wellbeing of all people in and through their environments.




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