Includes bibliographical references (pages 165-179) and index.
Contents:
The Whig Theory of Mind: Influence and Interpretation in Lord Hervey -- The Variety of Human Wishes -- Professor Smith -- Interesting Narratives -- Conclusion: Reigning Words and Glorious Revolutions.
Summary:
Can a single word explain the world? In the British eighteenth century, interest comes close: it lies at the foundation of the period's thinking about finance, economics, politics, psychology, and aesthetics. Interest and Connection in the Eighteenth Century provides the first comprehensive account of interest in an era when a growing national debt created a new class of rentiers who lived off of interest, the emerging discipline of economics made self-interest an axiom of human behavior, and booksellers began for the first time to market books by calling them "interesting." Sider Jost reveals how the multiple meanings of interest allowed writers to make connections--from witty puns to deep structural analogies--among different spheres of eighteenth-century life. Challenging a long and influential tradition that reads the eighteenth century in terms of individualism, atomization, abstraction, and the hegemony of market-based thinking, this innovative study emphasizes the importance of interest as an idiom for thinking about concrete social ties. Sider Jost recovers the small, densely networked world of Hanoverian Britain and its self-consciously inventive language for talking about human connections. -- Publisher description. "This book shows how the multiple meanings of "interest" allowed writers in the eighteenth century to make connections among different spheres of life such as finance, economics, politics, psychology, and aesthetics"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.