Sylvia Nasar

From the author of A Beautiful Mind, a sweeping history of the invention of modern economics that takes you from Dickens’ London to modern Calcutta.

The Story of Economic Genius

Grand Pursuit

Celine

As with so much else in Victorian high society, this frenetic and seemingly frivolous pursuit of pleasure was serious business: during the season, which began when Parliament resumed its session, London became the epicenter of the global marriage market. Wealthy parents thought of giving a daughter two or three London seasons in the same way as sending a son to Oxford or Cambridge. The expense and effort of participating in this extraordinarily intricate mating dance were certainly comparable.

The trouble, he thought, was that political economists had theories and activists had anecdotes, but neither could supply an unbiased or complete description of the problem.  

In the popular imagination, science was increasingly being seen as a way to get rich and, at the same time, a vehicle 10 solving the myriad social ills of poverty, disease, and ignorance. 

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