These essays develop a Marxist response to and approach to aspects of the recent economic past in the United Kingdom. They reflect issues and controversies that have arisen within economic policy debate and the economic theory associated with the debate, highlighting the problematic nature of economic policy in the period since the mid-1970s. The book, first published in 1986, develops a line of argument organized around issues of ‘calculation’, thus challenging the orthodox Marxist framework and presenting a neo-Marxist analysis.

These essays develop a Marxist response to and approach to aspects of the recent economic past in the United Kingdom. They reflect issues and controversies that have arisen within economic policy debate and the economic theory associated with the debate, highlighting the problematic nature of economic policy in the period since the mid-1970s. The book, first published in 1986, develops a line of argument organized around issues of 'calculation', thus challenging the orthodox Marxist framework and presenting a neo-Marxist analysis.

First published in 1985, this title includes contributions from leading economists and addresses many seminal aspects of Keynes' work and methods. This revival will be of particular interest to lecturers and advanced students of economics.

First published in 1983, this study investigates and compares three leading firms in the British iron and steel industry between 1914 and 1939, analysing their strategies, boardroom politics, and their responses to the problems posed by the Great War and by the vicissitudes of the 1920s and ‘30s. Jonathan Boswell illuminates certain issues that are of perennial importance for students of business: rationality and ‘error’ in decision-making, ethics, centralisation versus decentralisation, and the question of cyclical phases. The central theme throughout is the pursuit of three partly conflicting objectives: growth, efficiency and social action. The trade-offs between these three pursuits are used to examine significant contrasts in corporate strategies and behaviour, including towards government and public opinion. Boswell’s rejection of economic determinism; his insistence that managerial influences fall into definable long-run patterns; and his theses on managerial specialisation and long-term policy biases confront fundamental issues for theories of the firm.

First published in 1985, this study, focusing on Egypt, looks at the underlying reasons why certain political, economic and social events have taken place in the country’s history. It provides vital analysis of the political and economic issues of the country, and those that have affected it, as well as providing statistical material on all the key data of the political economy. The book was originally published as part of the Middle East Research Institute (MERI) Reports on the Middle East which quickly established themselves as the most authoritative and up-to-date information on the state of affairs in the region.

First published in 1979, this book examines key planning policy areas such as land use planning, land values, housing and slum clearance, urban transport, industrial and regional economic location policies, and policies inner city policies to explain why particular policies have been adopted at particular times — assessing the role of political parties, bureaucrats and interests in setting the national policy agenda. Policy is also placed in the broader economic and social context and the question of whether, given contemporaneous constraints, a coherent national urban policy is possible is examined. Its focus on political parties’ role in urban change at the start of Thatcher-era upheavals makes this book especially valuable to students of urban sociology and the history of planning.

This work, first published in 1977, is a reissue of a trailblazing work; the first textbook of economic history to deal comprehensively with the economic development of the whole continent in this period and to do so from a continental rather than a British perspective. But it is more than merely a textbook: it is an interpretative synthesis of the wide range of research on this subject in many countries. As such it will be an indispensable guide for teachers and will extend and improve the scope of teaching by making available for the first time in English the results of continental research. In addition, it is a work of fundamental interest to economists in which theories and hypotheses of economic development are now examined in a much wider historical context. In this way the book is an exploration of the objective validity of earlier theories and the starting point for further research into economic development and european history. The work covers the continental development of the German and French economies after 1870 and then in that context analyses the development of the smaller western economies. It then considers the relatively underdeveloped economies of eastern and southern Europe and includes the first attempt at a synthesis of economic development before 1914 in the Balkans. It concludes with an analysis of the international economy and its relationship to the economic development of the continent.