This six-volume set contains virtually all of the published work of Cairnes; it brings together all of his major works and almost all his uncollected articles, pamphlets and published letters. It should be a useful resource for those studying the man himself, the tradition of Classical economy, and Irish intellectual history in the 19th century.

The Slave Power, John E. Cairnes's seminal work on slavery, was widely acclaimed upon publication in 1862 as a brilliant attempt both to explain the essential cause of the American Civil War and to shape European policy concerning the struggle. It remains among the most important works on the political economy of Southern slavery. When Cairnes-one of the nineteenth century's preeminent classical liberal economists-characterized Southern slavery as inefficient and backward, his opinions carried enormous weight, earning him applause in the North and castigation in the slave- holding South....

John Elliot Cairnes (1823 1875) was one of the leading economists of his day, holding professorships at Trinity College Dublin, University College, Galway, and University College, London. He gained an international reputation with The Slave Power, first published in 1862, and enlarged and reissued the following year. His analysis of the economic and social system of the Confederate states in America did much to influence British support for the Union in the United States' Civil War. He argued that the course of history was influenced most of all by economic causes. Although he had begun his...