Why has Anglo-American culture for so long regarded "theory" with intense suspicion? In this important contribution to the history of critical theory, David Simpson argues that a nationalist myth underlies contemporary attacks on theory. Theory's antagonists, Simpson shows, invoke the same criteria of common sense and national solidarity as did the British intellectuals who rebelled against "theory" and "method" during the French Revolution. Simpson demonstrates the close association between "theory" and "method" and shows that by the mid-eighteenth century, "method" had acquired distinctly subversive associations in England. Attributed increasingly to the French and the Germans, "method" paradoxically evoked images both of inhuman rationality and unbridled sentimentality; in either incarnation, it was seen as a threat to what was claimed to be authentically British. Simpson develops these paradigms in relation to feminism, the gendering of Anglo-American culture, and the emergence of literature and literary criticism as antitheoretical discourses. He then looks at the Romantic poets' response to this confining ideology of the cultural role of literature. Finally, Simpson considers postmodern theory's claims for the radical energy of nonrational or antirationalist positions. This is an essential book not only for students of the Romantic period and intellectual historians concerned with the idea of "method," but for anyone interested in the historical background of today's debates over the excesses and possibilities of "theory."

Perhaps the most powerful feature of the Romantic imagination is its ability to dissolve existing form and order and create it anew. The Romantic investigation of the functions of the imagination also leads to important insights concerning its problems and dangers. Because it separates the person experiencing it from others around him, the imagination introduces ways of seeing which cannot be assumed to be simply communicable or easily shared, and which have as their objects different forms or 'things'. These forms, or figures, risk becoming for their originators both vehicles of power, in so far as they do convince others of their reality, and limiting constructs of prefigured order, inhibiting their users from the perception of new relations and alternative meanings. When the figured becomes the real, there thus arise difficulties in both individual and social perceptions. Arguing from the stance that all perception takes place by a creative (and hence potentially divisive) assembly of images or qualities into things, David Simpson shows that the analysis of figurative representation in Wordsworth's writing is of central importance to his idea of the human mind, and the way in which it is affected or allowed to function by its environment, both human and physical. In this way Wordsworth's ideas about the function of literature in society are seen to be more fully worked out than readers have often assumed them to be. Simpson pays particular attention to the ethical consequences of different ways of figuring the real, offering an explanation of Wordsworth's distinction between life in the town and life among the mountains and lakes of north-west England. In relating Wordsworth's poetry to important contemporary debates in political economy such as those concerning the division of labour and the evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of commerce and luxury, he suggests that Wordsworth is a notable precursor of that nineteenth-century tradition which sees themind as open to critical determination by social and environmental factors.

This critique of the postmodern turn discusses the distinctive aspects of postmodern scholarship: the pervasiveness of the literary and the flight from grand theory to local knowledge. Defining features of postmodern thought are also discussed here such as storytelling and localism.

Striding explores the modernization process by outlining the economics of agriculture, growth theories of economic development, and problems with growth. During the last century, policy makers and the public acquired a considerable interest in economics. As a result, this heightened awareness enhanced the well-being of society. In 1969, the Nobel Foundation initiated the new prize category of economic sciences and started awarding the prize annually. At the forefront of their field, prize winners have introduced many innovative ideas. Moreover, an evaluation of their ideas reveals valuable nuggets to enrich the professional lives of non-economists. Drawing on publications written by the Laureates, Striding with Economic Giants presents the essence of their thoughts in easy-to-understand concepts for the business and academic communities. This book is perfect for business executives, public policy makers, and economics students. It describes logic and experimental frameworks in mathematics, econometrics, behavior modeling, and game theory. Next, Striding presents microeconomic contributions, including production theory, theory of institutions, fundamental ideas of markets, and consumerism. Then, it reviews financial theory in capital markets, portfolio choice, and asset pricing. The book spotlights contributions to the rule of law, public administration, and political science. It also highlights a growing understanding of human capital by tracing demographic trends and describing health, education, minority, and labor economics. Enhancements to macroeconomic theory are featured in economic mechanisms and cycles, managing the economy, and policy making. Striding explores the modernization process by outlining the economics of agriculture, growth theories of economic development, and problems with growth. It illustrates contributions to international economics in trade, finance, and global public policy. Finally, the book showcases contributions to social justice in social equality, income redistribution, and climate change.

In our post-9/11 world, the figure of the stranger—the foreigner, the enemy, the unknown visitor—carries a particular urgency, and the force of language used to describe those who are “different” has become particularly strong. But arguments about the stranger are not unique to our time. In Romanticism and the Question of the Stranger, David Simpson locates the figure of the stranger and the rhetoric of strangeness in romanticism and places them in a tradition that extends from antiquity to today. Simpson shows that debates about strangers loomed large in the French Republic of the 1790s, resulting in heated discourse that weighed who was to be welcomed and who was to be proscribed as dangerous. Placing this debate in the context of classical, biblical, and other later writings, he identifies a persistent difficulty in controlling the play between the despised and the desired. He examines the stranger as found in the works of Coleridge, Austen, Scott, and Southey, as well as in depictions of the betrayals of hospitality in the literature of slavery and exploration—as in Mungo Park's Travels and Stedman's Narrative—and portrayals of strange women in de Staël, Rousseau, and Burney. Contributing to a rich strain of thinking about the stranger that includes interventions by Ricoeur and Derrida, Romanticism and the Question of the Stranger reveals the complex history of encounters with alien figures and our continued struggles with romantic concerns about the unknown.