Industry, Work & Public Finance: Texts & Context - eBooks

This category brings together works that examine economic theory, business practices, public finance, and labor from the 17th to early 20th centuries. The books range from treatises by classical economists like John Stuart Mill and David Ricardo to practical manuals on housework, hotel management, and stock speculation. They share a focus on how work, money, and policy intersect in industrial and commercial society.

The collection is unified by its attention to the mechanics of production, exchange, and distribution. Readers will find critiques of monopoly, analyses of wages and women's economic roles, and insider accounts of stock exchanges. The category differs from History, Empires & Change by emphasizing economic structures and domestic industry rather than global trade routes and imperial competition.

Represented authors include Mill, Ricardo, Sumner, Luxemburg, Frank Fetter, and William Smart. Settings range from 19th-century England to early 20th-century America. Periods covered span the 1690s (Samuel Pratt's coinage proposal) to the 1929 crash. Subjects include banking, tariffs, monopolies, wages, and domestic economy.

Classification limitation: Some works on trade and shipping might also fit the History category; placement reflects a focus on economic theory or domestic industry rather than geopolitical narrative.