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Economics as Religion

From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond

Robert H Nelson author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press

Published:15th Aug '14

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Economics as Religion cover

Robert Nelson’s Reaching for Heaven on Earth, Economics as Religion, and The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion Versus Environmental Religion in Contemporary America read almost like a trilogy, exploring and charting the boundaries of theology and economics from the Western foundations of ancient Greece through the traditions that Nelson identifies as “Protestant” and “Roman,” and on into modern economic forms such as Marxism and capitalism, as well as environmentalism. Nelson argues that economics can be a genuine form of religion and that it should inform our understanding of the religious developments of our times. This edition of Economics as Religion situates the influence of his work in the scholarly economic and theological conversations of today and reflects on the state of the economics profession and the potential implications for theology, economics, and other social sciences.

“The best recent study of the subject.”

—Samuel Brittan Financial Times


“Robert Nelson’s Economics as Religion offers a unique set of insights into the social role of the economics profession. . . . The book should be assigned reading for undergraduates in intermediate microeconomics and first-year graduate students in economics.”

—Jennifer Roback Journal of Markets and Morality


“Robert Nelson has written what may be the most important recent book on the future of the economics profession.”

—Andrew Morriss Books and Culture


“An economic theorist himself, Nelson elegantly exposes his firm understanding of the history of economic theory. . . . He is in fact perfectly at ease venturing into theological and religious history, persuasively establishing parallels between the economic and religious realms.”

—Aren E. Annus Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions

ISBN: 9780271063768

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 26mm

Weight: 635g

436 pages

with a new Epilogue