The Body Economic

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Exploring the intersection of political economy and literature in nineteenth-century Britain, this work reveals how economists and their critics shared fundamental social assumptions. Catherine Gallagher argues that both groups shifted the concept of value from spiritual to organic life, emphasizing human sensations like pleasure and pain as central to value. The book reinterprets classical political economy as a form of organicism, positioning the body and its feelings at the core of economic theory, while also highlighting the physiological foundations of neoclassical economics.