This volume of extremely rare pamphlets spans over thirty years of prolific output by G D H Cole. It encompasses the challenges of full employment and the role re-armament in achieving that, nationalizing industries, the principles of socialism and the welfare state.

G. D. H. Cole was one of the foremost British socialist thinkers of the twentieth century. His literary output was immense and encompassed works of social theory, economics, political economy, economic history, social and labour history, political theory, history of thought and sociology. The books and pamphlets chosen for this edition are amongst his most significant. They are representative of the different phases of his thinking and illustrative of an acute and inquiring socialist mind as it wrestled with the formidable political and intellect challenges confronted by socialists in this most turbulent of centuries.

This set re-issues 10 works of the well-known socialist thinker G. D. H. Cole and one volume of collected pamphlets, originally published between 1917 and 1956. The works in this collection encompass three critical periods of Cole's socialist thinking: the guild socialist decade from 1913-23; the post 1929 period when his political economy was dominated by the notion of socialist economic intervention and planning, and the post-war period when, like other socialist theorists, he sought to come to terms with the particular challenges posed by the legacy of the Attlee governments, and the emergence of an affluent society. A substantial introduction by Noel Thompson places the works in their social, political and historical context and illustrates their continued relevance.

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The Market and Its Critics, first published in 1988, considers the reaction of socialist writers to the growth of the market economy in nineteenth century Britain, and examines in detail the diverse elements of the critique which they formulated. Dr Thompson looks at the theoretic and thematic continuities and discontinuities over the century, structuring his study around the idea of a changing socialist response to the market economy. Much of the literature in question is comprehensive, perceptive and acute. However, the writers invariably discounted the possibility of the market playing a role in a future socialist or communist commonwealth. The solutions they posited to the problem were inapplicable to the increasingly industrial economy of the time. It was this that left their writing vulnerable to attack, and which had profound consequences both for the fate of the socialist political economy in nineteenth century Britain and its subsequent evolution in the twentieth century.

The Market and Its Critics, first published in 1988, " "considers the reaction of socialist writers to the growth of the market economy in nineteenth century Britain, and examines in detail the diverse elements of the critique which they formulated.

Dr Thompson looks at the theoretic and thematic continuities and discontinuities over the century, structuring his study around the idea of a changing socialist response to the market economy. Much of the literature in question is comprehensive, perceptive and acute. However, the writers invariably discounted the possibility of the market playing a role in a future socialist or communist commonwealth. The solutions they posited to the problem were inapplicable to the increasingly industrial economy of the time. It was this that left their writing vulnerable to attack, and which had profound consequences both for the fate of the socialist political economy in nineteenth century Britain and its subsequent evolution in the twentieth century.

This book is an excellent introduction to the ideas and arguments that have guided Labor's economic thinking from 1884 until the present day, and the influence these ideas have exerted over the formulation of economic policy. It provides clear and concise summaries of leading thinkers and schools, and clearly brings out the diverse nature of the economic thought that has characterized the Labour party.
This significantly revised edition brings the book up to the present day and provides a much needed analysis of the Blair government. It explores how the early thinking of the 1990s has been applied in government and, in addition to providing a more developed historical contextualization of ideas and thinkers, the new edition includes:
* A new introduction discussing the emergence of the Labor Party and the disparate elements of which it is comprised
* A chapter discussing the intellectual antecedents of, and influences on, New Labor. It also explores the impact of globalization and the shifting Labor position on the EU
* A chapter examining the ideological trajectory of New Labor and where its political economy now lies on the political spectrum. It also discusses Britain's economic performance since 1997
* A new conclusion discussing the themes that have guided and informed economic thinking within the labor party and also the methodologies and emphases that have characterized democratic socialist political economies in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The book will be of great interest to students and scholars studying British politics, British history, economic and political thought.

This book is an excellent introduction to the ideas and arguments that have guided Labor's economic thinking from 1884 until the present day, and the influence these ideas have exerted over the formulation of economic policy. It provides clear and concise summaries of leading thinkers and schools, and clearly brings out the diverse nature of the economic thought that has characterized the Labour party.
This significantly revised edition brings the book up to the present day and provides a much needed analysis of the Blair government. It explores how the early thinking of the 1990s has been applied in government and, in addition to providing a more developed historical contextualization of ideas and thinkers, the new edition includes:
* A new introduction discussing the emergence of the Labor Party and the disparate elements of which it is comprised
* A chapter discussing the intellectual antecedents of, and influences on, New Labor. It also explores the impact of globalization and the shifting Labor position on the EU
* A chapter examining the ideological trajectory of New Labor and where its political economy now lies on the political spectrum. It also discusses Britain's economic performance since 1997
* A new conclusion discussing the themes that have guided and informed economic thinking within the labor party and also the methodologies and emphases that have characterized democratic socialist political economies in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The book will be of great interest to students and scholars studying British politics, British history, economic and political thought.

This volume of extremely rare pamphlets spans over thirty years of prolific output by G D H Cole. It encompasses the challenges of full employment and the role re-armament in achieving that, nationalizing industries, the principles of socialism and the welfare state.

Wallace noticed on expeditions to the Amazon and the Malay archipelego that mammals in Southeast Asia are more advanced than their Australian cousins. His suggestion was that the two continents had split before the better adapted mammals had evolved in Asia. The isolated Australian marsupials were able to thrive, whilst those in Asia were driven to extinction by competition from more advanced mammals. This led to his theory of natural selection, which he presented to the Linnean Society in 1858 with Charles Darwin. This volume reprints those papers presented to the Linnean Society.

Social Opulence and Private Restraint is a study of the place of the consumer and consumption in the political economy of British socialism, from its early-nineteenth-century origins, through 'New Times' Marxism, to the consumer-focused New Labourism and political economies critical of consumerism that can be found in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first-century Left. Noel Thompson identifies and explicates recurrent themes which cross the boundaries of the conventional periodisation of the history of British socialist thought; themes which illustrate the sustained nature of the multifaceted ideological challenge presented by the accommodation of the consumer within socialist political economy. This challenge necessitates an engagement with the character and priorities of a future socialist society. As such it touches on some of the key issues which socialists have confronted in pursuit of their vision of a good society: issues with a strong contemporary relevance such as the desirability of private as against social opulence; the relationship between consumption and happiness; the need to educate and/or to liberate desire; and, in particular, the environmental and social consequences of rising levels of consumer expectation and consumption. The study also throws light on how the disparate ways in which these issues were addressed reflected and shaped the socialist political economies that emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while also engendering tensions between them.