Twentieth-century philosophy has been dominated by issues concerned with language. These have left few areas of academic enquiry untouched; an awareness of language matters to a discipline because claims to knowledge can be made only by using language. However, economists have only come to recognize its importance relatively recently. Moreover whilst there has been much written on the subject of economics and language in the last decade, this has been dominated by the use of techniques borrowed from literary criticism. Whilst these have provided many valuable insights, they have tended to...

A rich vein of economics writings which runs through the nineteenth century and beyond is now largely ignored because its authors were women or because they favoured literary over scientific forms. Economics as Literature re-examines some of the most interesting texts from within this tradition.
The works considered include:
*stories (eg by Maria Edgeworth and Harriet Martineau)
*dialogues (eg by Jane Marcet and Thomas de Quincey)
*'imaginative' writing (eg from Ruskin and Francis Edgeworth)
*Keynes' General Theory which is locked within a nineteenth century...

This volume offers a reading of John Ruskin's economic and social criticism, based on recent research into rhetoric in economics in the late 1990s. Willie Henderson uses notions derived from literary criticism, the rhetorical turn in economics and more conventional approaches to historical economic texts to reevaluate Ruskin's economic and social criticism. By identifying Ruskin's rhetoric, and by reading his work through that of Plato, Xenophon, and John Stuart Mill, Willie Henderson reveals how Ruskin manipulated a knowledge base. Moreover in analysis of the writings of William Smart, John...

This important new book builds on the understanding that Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations "is best viewed as a cultural document, created within the context of eighteenth century notions of human nature, economy and argument, and that familiarity and rhetoric played a part in its success.
Using discourse analysis, Henderson explores Smiths rhetorical strategies, relationships with his sources and readers, and his way of constructing his economic vision in writing. He expertly demonstrates techniques of text analysis to the reader in ways that promote a critical reading of Smith and which...

Adam Smith is well recognized as the forefather of modern economics, but his success can be attributed not only to what he wrote but also to his use of language. In this exciting new book, Willie Henderson shows how Smith engaged creatively in writing about the economy, and analyzes the extent to which he tried to ensure that the reader is drawn into the text and informed by it.

Demonstrating analysis methods that are helpful to new researchers on Smith's works, Evaluating Adam Smith sets his work in the cultural context of the eighteenth century and explores the...