
Mary Wollstonecraft and Political Economy by Catherine Packham
Why was Wollstonecraft's landmark feminist work, the Vindication of the Rights of Woman, categorised as a work of political economy when it was first published? Taking this question as a starting point, Mary Wollstonecraft and Political Economy gives a compelling new account of Wollstonecraft as critic of the material, moral, social, and psychological conditions of commercial modernity. Offering thorough analysis of Wollstonecraft's major writings - including her two Vindications, her novels, her history of the French Revolution, and her travel writing - this is the only book-length study to situate Wollstonecraft in the context of the political economic thought of her time. It shows Wollstonecraft as an economic as much as a political radical, whose critique of the emerging economic orthodoxies of her time anticipates later Romantic thinkers. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
'[T]his is a scholarly and fascinating study… Recommended.' R. T. Ingoglia, Choice
'Packham contributes significantly to scholarship by setting Wollstonecraft's achievement in the context of various Enlightenment schools of 'political economy' … and suggests convincingly that the implications of Wollstonecraft's far-seeing critique of patriarchy and property for the study of gender, race, ethnicity and politics are legion.' Eileen M. Hunt, The Times Literary Supplement
'Packham contributes significantly to scholarship by setting Wollstonecraft's achievement in the context of various Enlightenment schools of 'political economy' … and suggests convincingly that the implications of Wollstonecraft's far-seeing critique of patriarchy and property for the study of gender, race, ethnicity and politics are legion.' Eileen M. Hunt, The Times Literary Supplement
Catherine Packham is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature and Thought at the University of Sussex. She is the author of Eighteenth-Century Vitalism: Bodies, Culture, Politics (2012) and co-editor of Political Economy, Literature and the Formation of Knowledge, 1720–1850 (2018). She was the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and has published widely on Wollstonecraft and eighteenth-century political economy.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781009395816 |
| ISBN 10 | 1009395815 |
| Title | Mary Wollstonecraft and Political Economy |
| Author | Catherine Packham |
| Series | Cambridge Studies In Romanticism |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 2025-07-03 |
| Number of pages | 301 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |