The Great Transformation

Author: Karl Polanyi

Anthropology | Politics & government | Economic history

Published on 20^th June 2024 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom as part of the 'Penguin Modern Classics' series.

Paperback / softback | 352 pages
198mm x 129mm | 500g

Tracing the history of capitalism in England and beyond, Karl Polanyi's landmark 1944 classic brilliantly exposed the myth of laissez-faire economics. From the great transformation that occurred during the industrial revolution onwards, he showed, there has been nothing 'natural' about the market state. Instead, the economy must always be embedded in society, and human needs and relations. Witnessing the 'avalanche of social dislocation' of his time - from the Great Depression, to the rise of fascism and communism and the First and Second World Wars - Polanyi ends with a rallying cry for freedom, and a passionate vision to protect our common humanity.