Economic History, Capitalism 

"In the department of human affairs concerned with the economic activities of man, the old universally accepted code of justice fell into disregard, if not into ridicule; and its place was taken, on the one hand, by the theory that the only safe guide for man to follow in these affairs is his own personal interest, and, on the other hand, and partly as a reaction against this repulsive theory, that the individual has no right of initiative at all, but that his whole being must be subordinated to the welfare of the community. Both these theories would have been equally disapproved by the old, despised ethical authority of the Middle Ages, under those regime they could not have flourished or developed; but, at the time when they arose, that old authority was no longer universally accepted, and there was no power in Europe strong enough to withstand the march of these two dangerous doctrines. The path to both Capitalism and Socialism had been opened by the Reformation."

by George O'Brien

Dr. George Augustine Thomas O'Brien (1982-1973) was Professor of National Economy (1926-1961) and Professor of Economics (1930-1961) at University College, Dublin, where he also held the economics Chair. His three-volume magnum opus, The Economic History of Ireland (1918-1921), won him the National University of Ireland's Irish Historical Research Prize; the work remains the authority on Irish economic history. He represented the University in the Irish Senate from 1949 to 1965, and was a member of numerous governmental and professional economic societies, including the Economic Committee of the Senate, the Irish Currency Commission, and the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society, to which he delivered the 1943 presidential address. His other works include An Essay on Medieval Economic Teaching (1920), Agricultural Economics (1929), and Notes on the Theory of Profit (1929). As testimony to his learning and character, one of his biographers notes that "the brilliance of his lecturing drew undergraduates from other courses, and many of his former students remained his friends for life."

Featuring an Introduction by Dr. Edward A McPhail

Dr. McPhail is Assistant Professor of Economics ad Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Washington University and the University of Virginia, and received his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research specialties include international trade theory, eugenics and economics, socialism and its critics, and the political economy of GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.

Taken from the back cover.