Abstract
In this chapter Johansen provides a study of the oft-neglected popularisation of economic knowledge in the early phase of industrialisation in Britain. The chapter shows that economic knowledge offered answers to calm down the fears of unemployment and uncertainties towards the future that threatened to cause riots and machine breaking in the wake of the ‘industrial revolution.’ In a case study, the chapter shows that a progressive theory of history inherent in political economy tried to turn the overwhelming sense of rupture into a legitimising narrative of a continuation of the natural progress of history and civilisation.
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Johansen, T.P. (2016). Political Economy at Work: Explaining the Results of Machinery in 1830s Britain. In: Thorup, M. (eds) Intellectual History of Economic Normativities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59416-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59416-7_8
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59416-7
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