History and Society

R. H. Tawney believed that the subject of economic history raises questions which touch the fundamental concerns of all thinking people. By setting economic development firmly within the framework of cultural and political life, he provided an alternative to the recent fragmentation of economic history into a number of increasingly technical specialisms. First published as a collection in 1978, these ten essays, spanning the length of Professor Tawneys career remain as controversial and potent as ever, and the original introduction by J. M. Winter provides the first full evaluation and significance of R. H. Tawneys approach to economic history. Among the essays included in this volume are the indispensible studies of The Rise of the Gentry and Harringtons Interpretation of His Age, as well as The Abolition of Economic Controls, 1918-1921, here published in full for the first time. Other selections, such as Tawneys celebrated inaugural lecture as Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics in 1933, the Study of Economic History, offer a representative sample of the range and sweep of Tawneys historical imagination. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the validity of Tawneys conviction that economic historians must confront not only the creation of wealth, but also the moral questions surrounding its distribution.