Gordon

The radical notion that it is possible to end poverty is at least two hundred years old. For example, Nicolas de Condorcet, the French Enlightenment philosopher, argued in his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795) that poverty was not a result of natural laws or divine will but was caused by `the present imperfections of the social arts¿. And in the past twenty years or so¿exemplified not least by Live Aid, the Jubilee 2000 campaign, and the UN¿s...
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The radical notion that it is possible to end poverty is at least two hundred years old. For example, Nicolas de Condorcet, the French Enlightenment philosopher, argued in his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795) that poverty was not a result of natural laws or divine will but was caused by `the present imperfections of the social arts¿. And in the past twenty years or so¿exemplified not least by Live Aid, the Jubilee 2000 campaign, and the UN¿s Millennium Development Goals¿the idea that poverty could, and should, be eradicated has become a global political priority, of growing concern to opinion formers, policy-makers, academics, and the general public. Research in and around poverty is very wide-ranging and flourishes as never before. But much of the relevant literature remains inaccessible or is highly specialized and compartmentalized, so that it is difficult for many of those who are interested in the subject to obtain an informed, balanced, and comprehensive overview. This new four-volume collection from Routledge¿s acclaimed series, Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences, meets the need for a reference work to make sense of the subject¿s vast and dispersed literature and the continuing explosion in research output. The four volumes bring together classic and contemporary contributions to provide authoritative coverage of the concept and theory of poverty and its history. The collection also assembles the key work on the measurement of poverty and on anti-poverty policy. The collection includes a full index and is supplemented by introductions to each volume, newly written by the editor, a leading international poverty scholar, which place the gathered materials in their historical and intellectual context. It is an essential reference work which will be valued as a vital resource by students, academics, policy-makers, and practitioners.