How do societies achieve a level of complexity, coordination, and social intelligence that far surpasses the capacity of individual human intelligence? Emily Chamlee-Wright addresses this question in the context of civil society generally, in which we cannot always rely on market prices to guide our way.

This essay reviews four of the central themes in Emily Chamily-Wright's The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery. These themes include: (1) the cultural toolkit, (2) the use of qualitative methods in social science research, (3) polycentricism and disaster recovery, and (4) entrepreneurship in non-priced environments. Our purpose is twofold. First, to make clear Chamlee-Wright's contributions to our understanding of disaster recovery. Second, to demonstrate how these themes provide an opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange by blending insights from across the social sciences.

This fascinating volume offers a critique of recent institutional and cultural turns in heterodox economics and political economy. Using seven case studies as examples, the authors explore how research on sense- and meaning-making can deepen critical s

Historians have often speculated on the alternative paths the United Stages might have taken during the Great Depression: What if Franklin D. Roosevelt had been killed by one of Giuseppe Zangara’s bullets in Miami on February 17, 1933? Would there have been a New Deal under an administration led by Herbert Hoover had he been reelected in 1932? To what degree were Roosevelt’s own ideas and inclinations, as opposed to those of his contemporaries, essential to the formulation of New Deal policies? In Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and the Economics of Recovery, the eminent historian Elliot A. Rosen examines these and other questions, exploring the causes of the Great Depression and America’s recovery from it in relation to the policies and policy alternatives that were in play during the New Deal era. Evaluating policies in economic terms, and disentangling economic claims from political ideology, Rosen argues that while planning efforts and full-employment policies were essential for coping with the emergency of the depression, from an economic standpoint it is in fact fortunate that they did not become permanent elements of our political economy. By insisting that the economic bases of proposals be accurately represented in debating their merits, Rosen reveals that the productivity gains, which accelerated in the years following the 1929 stock market crash, were more responsible for long-term economic recovery than were governmental policies. Based on broad and extensive archival research, Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and the Economics of Recovery is at once an erudite and authoritative history of New Deal economic policy and timely background reading for current debates on domestic and global economic policy.

Italy is a country of recent decline and long-standing idiosyncratic traits- a rich society where the rule of law is weak and political accountability is low. This book draws on political economic literature and historical analysis to argue that a battle of ideas can ease the shift to a fairer and more efficient equilibrium.

The power of capital is the power to target our attention, mould market-ready identities, and reduce the public realm to an endless series of choices. This has far-reaching implications for our psychological, physical and spiritual well-being, and ultimately for our global ecology. In this consumer age, the underlying teachings of Buddhist mindfulness offer more than individual well-being and resilience. They also offer new sources of critical inquiry into our collective condition, and may point, in time, to regulatory initiatives in the field of well-being. This book draws together lively debates from the new economics of transition, commons and well-being, consumerism, and the emerging role of mindfulness in popular culture. Engaged Buddhist practices and teachings correspond closely to insights in contemporary political philosophical investigations into the nature of power, notably by Michel Foucault. The 'attention economy' can be understood as a new arena of struggle in our age of neoliberal governmentality; as the forces of enclosure – having colonized forests, land and the bodies of workers – are now extended to the realm of our minds and subjectivity. This poses questions about the recovery of the 'mindful commons': the practices we must cultivate to reclaim our attention, time and lives from the forces of capitalization. This is a valuable resource for students and scholars of environmental philosophy, environmental psychology, environmental sociology, well-being and new economics, political economy, environmental politics, the commons and law, as well as Buddhist theory and philosophy.