Political economy and the novel: a literary history of "homo economicus"

'Political Economy and the Novel' provides a transhistorical account of homo economicus (economic man), demonstrating this figure's significance to economic theory and the Anglo-American novel over a 250-year period.

Through its sustained comparative analysis of literary and economic discourses, this book transforms our understanding of the genre of the novel and offers critical new understandings of literary value, cultural capital and the moral foundations of political economy.