Power, Prose, and Purse

Law, Literature, and Economic Transformations

Edited by Alison LaCroix, Saul Levmore, and Martha C. Nussbaum

Draws connections between literature, economics and law
Discusses novels that explore the time period between the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression
Focuses on novels about money and economic upheaval
Showcases the power of the disciplinary marriage of law and literature

Power, Prose, and Purse

Law, Literature, and Economic Transformations

Edited by Alison LaCroix, Saul Levmore, and Martha C. Nussbaum

Description

From Anthony Trollop to Sinclair Lewis, and from Jane Austen to James Joyce and John Steinbeck, many important novels touch on fundamental questions about the role of money in human affairs. These questions are explored in this volume through the lens of law and literature. The sixteen essays collected here, by important theorists from a range of disciplines, shed new light on the impact of economic change, from the Industrial Revolution to the Great Depression. Students of economics and business will gain a new appreciation of literature's insights on singular events and human emotions. Similarly, scholars and students of literature will gain an appreciation for the power of law and economics to inform literary and social analysis. The volume's focus on novels about money and economic upheaval showcases the power of the disciplinary marriage of law and literature.

Power, Prose, and Purse

Law, Literature, and Economic Transformations

Edited by Alison LaCroix, Saul Levmore, and Martha C. Nussbaum

Introduction
Part One. Swindlers or Entrepreneurs?
Susanna Blumenthal, Counterfeiting Confidence: The Problem of Trust in the Age of Contract
Nicola Lacey, Gamblers and Gentlefolk: Money, Law and Status in Trollope's England
Saul Levmore, Regulating Greed: Biographical Markers in Dos Passos' The Big Money
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Morning and the Evening Star: Religion, Money, and Love in Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt and Elmer Gantry
Justin Driver, Jay Gatsby, Justice Douglas, and the Significance of Class in American Society
Part Two. Preferences and Capitalists
Jonathan S. Masur & Seebany Data-Barua, Wealth and Warfare in the Novels of Jane Austen
Alison LaCroix, Commerce, Law, and Revolution in the Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Bront
Robin West, Bartleby's Consensual Dysphoria
Martha C. Nussbaum, Love from the Point of View of the Universe: Walt Whitman and the Utilitarian Imagination
Douglas G. Baird, Money and Art in Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward
Laura Weinrib, The Second New Deal and the Fourth Courtroom Wall: Law, Labor, and Liberty in The Cradle Will Rock
Carol M. Rose, Raisin, Race, and the Real Estate Revolution of the Early 20th Century
Part Three. Optimism and Pessimism
Richard H. McAdams, The Grapes of Wrath, Economics, and Luck
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, Irish (and English and American) Poets, Learn Your Trade: Law and Economics in Poetry

Power, Prose, and Purse

Law, Literature, and Economic Transformations

Edited by Alison LaCroix, Saul Levmore, and Martha C. Nussbaum

Author Information

Edited by Alison LaCroix, Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law and an Associate Member of the Department of History, University of Chicago, Edited by Saul Levmore, William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor Law, University of Chicago, and Edited by Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Law School and the Philosophy Department, University of Chicago

Alison LaCroix is Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law and an Associate Member of the Department of History at the University of Chicago. Saul Levmore is William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Martha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics in the Law School and the Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago

Contributors:

Douglas G. Baird
Susanna Blumenthal
Seebany Data-Barua
Justin Driver
Nicola Lacey
Jonathan S. Masur
Richard H. McAdams
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
Carol M. Rose
Laura Weinrib
Robin West