Introduction: Biblical Ideals to Secular Realities Part 1: The ‘Holy Poor’ and its Desecrations:From the Hebrew Bible to the French Revolution 1. The Bible and the Poor: law and literature 2. The Medieval Transformation: the Unholy Poor in Literature and Poor Law 3. Sixteenth-century English nationalism: Poor Law, Scripture, and Shakespeare 4. From Shakespeare to Wordsworth: the rediscovery of biblical love for the poor Part 2: Poverty in the West and the Failure of Ideologies, 1789–1939 5. Industry, Revolution, and the Poor 6. Germinal: Peasants and Literature in England, Russia, and France 7. Jews in Eastern Europe 1861–1917: degradation and recovery 8. Hunger-Artists: from Pushkin to Orwell 9. Poverty, Literature, and the Environment 10. The End of Extreme Poverty in the West: Interwar Italy and America Appendix: The ‘Holy Poor’ in the Literature of Developing Countries, 1945–
David Aberbach is Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Studies at McGill University, Canada, and has held visiting positions at Harvard (Kennedy Center for International Development) and the London School of Economics (International Development).