Karl Polanyi - by Gareth Dale (Paperback)
Similar Products
Products of same category from the store
All
Product info
<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>Karl Polanyi was one of the twentieth century's most original interpreters of the market economy. His writing still serves as an effective counterargument to free market fundamentalism. Gareth Dale shows how the major personal and historical events of Polanyi's life transformed him from a bourgeois radical into a Christian socialist.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>Karl Polanyi (1886-1964) was one of the twentieth century's most original interpreters of the market economy. His penetrating analysis of globalization's disruptions and the Great Depression's underlying causes still serves as an effective counterargument to free market fundamentalism. This biography shows how the major personal and historical events of his life transformed him from a bourgeois radical into a Christian socialist but also informed his ambivalent stance on social democracy, communism, the New Deal, and the shifting intellectual scene of postwar America.<br /> The book begins with Polanyi's childhood in the Habsburg Empire and his involvement with the Great War and Hungary's postwar revolution. It connects Polanyi's idealistic radicalism to the political promise and intellectual ferment of Red Vienna and the horror of fascism. The narrative revisits Polanyi's oeuvre in English, German, and Hungarian, includes exhaustive research in five archives, and features interviews with Polanyi's daughter, students, and colleagues, clarifying the contradictory aspects of the thinker's work. These personal accounts also shed light on Polanyi's connections to scholars, Christians, atheists, journalists, hot and cold warriors, and socialists of all stripes. <em>Karl Polanyi: A Life on the Left </em>engages with Polanyi's biography as a reflection and condensation of extraordinary times. It highlights the historical ruptures, tensions, and upheavals that the thinker sought to capture and comprehend and, in telling his story, engages with the intellectual and political history of a turbulent epoch.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>A substantial and well-researched intellectual biography.--History of Political Thought<br><br>A very well-written biography.--History of Economic Ideas<br><br>A post‐democratic dystopia where efficiency acts as the arbiter of social ethics has by now (re‐)imposed itself, which explains why Polanyi's work has found its well‐deserved place among social scientists' classics. This is a reason enough to read about the historical context of Polanyi's lucid work and his interesting life. Dale gives an excellent account of both, though the work can speak for itself nonetheless.--David Hollanders, University of Amsterdam "British Journal of Industrial Relations "<br><br>Reading this excellent biography gives a glimpse not only into the mind of Polanyi but also into the constantly changing nature of our economic system and the streams of social thought that strive to change it even further.--American Historical Review<br><br>Dale has delivered much-needed, excellent scholarship on the intellectual history of the twentieth century.--European History Quarterly<br><br>Dale's invaluable portrait unsettles some of the received images of its subject, above all by tracing his intellectual journey in its full sweep.--Dissent<br><br>Gareth Dale has done an outstanding job of recounting Polanyi's very full life in both the political and academic realms.... For those interested in the work, not only of Karl Polanyi... this book will be invaluable.--EH-Net<br><br>Gareth Dale's intellectual biography of Polanyi--the first such book--is exceptionally satisfying: <br>thoughtful and engaging, detailed yet focused.--New Political Science<br><br>Gareth Dale's intellectual biography, <i>Karl Polanyi: A Life on the Left</i>, does a fine job of exploring the man, his work, and the political and intellectual setting in which he developed. This is not the first Polanyi biography, but it is the most comprehensive.--New York Review of Books<br><br>Illuminating.--Boston Review<br><br>Like all good biographers, Dale convinces in subtle ways through a careful piecing together of the words and actions of his subject with diverse other sources and his deep knowledge of the encompassing <i>milieu</i>--Soziopolis<br><br>The book can safely be considered the definitive biography of Polanyi, unlikely to become rivalled by any other that may emerge on the wave of Polanyi's increasing popularity. The book not only benefits from its author's deep familiarity and sympathy with Polanyi's work, but also from Dale's skilfull pen.--LSE Review of Books<br><br>There is much to be said about Polanyi's social circumstances and life story, beautifully recounted in Dale's biography--Democracy<br><br>This clear explication of [Polanyi's] provocative ideas [is] timely and relevant.--Foreign Affairs<br><br>This terrific book can be read on different levels, learning about Jewish evolution as well as the gross of modernist thinking...Dale deserves great credit for his masterpiece.--Choice<br><br>To those for whom Polanyi has become an intellectual or political inspiration, Dale's biography is a landmark.--Chronicle of Higher Education<br><br>Gareth Dale could hardly have chosen a more propitious time to publish this substantial political and intellectual biography--Barry Hindess, Australian National University, Australia "European Legacy "<br><br>Writing the intellectual biography of one of the truly great thinkers of the twentieth century, an heir to Rousseau--comparable in importance to Max Weber or to John Maynard Keynes--is a daunting enterprise. Particularly so, since Polanyi's life is bound to the history of a European radicalism now defunct or dormant. Gareth Dale is equal to this task, the complexity of which is incredible. I have no doubt that this is a durable work that will be read by generations. Also, it will show that this half-submerged chapter in the chronicle of revolutionary and--to say the same with another word--theoretical upheavals is indispensable for everybody who still insists on being able to think critically.--G. M. Tamás, author of <i>Innocent Power: 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts</i><br><br>A penetrating and revealing account that reconstructs the social and political milieus in which Polanyi developed his ideas, and it explicates and provides context for the contradictory currents in his thinking about politics, economics, and social theory.--Fred Block and Margaret R. Somers "Contemporary Sociology "<br><br>Gareth Dale's new biography offers us a bracing reminder of a far richer world of socialist activity that once existed in much of the West.--Nikil Saval "The Nation "<br><br>Here is the book the many admirers of Karl Polanyi have been waiting for: a vivid, thoroughly researched, and lucidly written intellectual biography that is worthy of its subject. It traces Polanyi's life and developing ideas first in central Europe, then in Britain and North America, showing both their rootedness in the 'lost world' of twentieth-century socialism and their ever-greater relevance to making sense of the market societies of our own time.--Steven Lukes, author of <i>Power: A Radical View</i><br><br>One of the best biographies ever written of any intellectual emerging from the horrors of mid-twentieth-century Europe. It meticulously covers the whole ground--from the Jewish roots in Budapest through the First War, brilliantly reconstructs the milieu and debates of interwar Vienna, and adds enormously to our understanding of <i>The Great Transformation</i>. A compelling portrait, it is successful not just as an intellectual biography but as a personal one as well.--John A. Hall, author of <i>Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography</i><br><br>The long wait for an intellectual biography of Karl Polanyi is finally over. The task is intimidating because Polanyi's concepts are difficult to untangle and his life was divided into successive sojourns in five different countries with three different languages. But Gareth Dale has succeeded in writing an engaging and meticulously researched book that illuminates Polanyi's ideas and situates them in their proper historical context.--Fred Block, author of <i>The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's Critique</i><br><br>This is a well-written, often sparkling, always informative, comprehensive narrative about the life and work of Karl Polanyi. The analysis is rich with cultural and historical contextualization, full of interesting allusions and reflections, and wonderfully evocative of the unfolding events on a European and transatlantic stage--it will be the standard reference point for all future work on Polanyi.--Bob Jessop, University of Lancaster<br><br>This much needed and accessibly crafted biography by a recognized authority on Karl Polanyi is well researched and supported by a range of sources, including archival material, interviews, and other contemporaneous scholars. The rich historical sourcing provides stimulating material for both scholarly audiences and general readers interested in the lives, contributions, and intellectual thought of fascinating individuals and scholars who lived through this particularly era.--Sally Randles, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester Institute of Innovation Research<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Gareth Dale is senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Brunel University, London. His other books include <i>Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market</i> (2010), <i>Karl Polanyi: The Hungarian Writings</i> (2016), and <i>Green Growth: Ideology, Political Economy, and the Alternatives</i> (2016).
Price History
Price Archive shows prices from various stores, lets you see history and find the cheapest. There is no actual sale on the website. For all support, inquiry and suggestion messagescommunication@pricearchive.us