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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Lost Forms of Economic Knowledge: On the Balance of Living Beings

The Lost Forms of Economic Knowledge: On the Balance of Living Beings

Orain, Arnaud
Pernsteiner, Alexis

Hardcover

Series: The France Chicago Collection

EconomicsGeneral World History

PREORDER - Expected ship date November 3, 2026

ISBN10: 0226842517
ISBN13: 9780226842516
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: Nov 3 2026
Pages: 304
Weight: 1.00
Language: English

Traces the early history of economic knowledge developed by thinkers between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Starting with the sixteenth century, The Lost Forms of Economic Knowledge investigates the origins and prehistory of economic thought before the emergence of political economy as an autonomous discipline in the late eighteenth century. In this book, the celebrated French historian Arnaud Orain argues that these lost forms of economic knowledge represent an important alternative to our modern system of numerical abstraction and market manipulation.

As Orain shows, older approaches to the economy defined it as a relationship between humans and their specific environment. These earlier mindsets sought to advance vernacular knowledge by turning to a variety of figures--naturalists, artisans, farmers, and merchants--to learn how to take advantage of the environment without depleting it. The goal of these inquiries was not to maximize profit but to determine how to allow humans to satisfy basic needs and live in harmony with nature. Now, at a time in which natural resources are fast depleting, Orain argues that we could do worse than consider the alternative approaches to economics that lie in our past, and that might still be available in the future.

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