Capitalism and Commerce in Imaginative Literature

Edward W. Younkins is professor of accountancy and director of graduate business programs at Wheeling Jesuit University.

• Chapter 1 Capitalism and Commerce in Novels and PlaysChapter 2 Epic and the Medium of Exchange Chapter 3 The Cost of War and the Profits of Peace in Aristophanes’ ArcharniansChapter 4 A Time for Bonding: Commerce, Love, and Law in The Merchant of VeniceChapter 5 Human Action: Pursing Happiness Inside and Outside the Happy ValleyChapter 6 The Rime of the Neoclassical Economist: The Economist’s Failure at Spreading the Passion of CapitalismChapter 7 Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South: Industrial Energy Versus “The Idiocies Of Rural Life”Chapter 8 Where Have You Gone, Horatio Alger: A Long Gone Literary Hero and the Bourgeois VirtuesChapter 9 Crony Capitalism in The Gilded Age by Twain and Warner and its Relevance for Today Chapter 10 Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the PeopleChapter 11 William Dean Howells’ Work Ethic in The Rise of Silas LaphamChapter 12 Capitalism Contra Ethics: William Dean Howells and the Moral Ambivalence of BusinessChapter 13 The Panic of ’93: The Literary ResponseCh

In this volume, Edward W. Younkins brings together a remarkably talented and diverse group of scholars who provide us with provocative essays that break down the walls between economics and literary criticism, history, and imagination. The result is a collection that challenges conventional perspectives on classic literature and historical interpretation.