The Annotated Works of Henry George

Henry George (1839–1897) rose to fame as a social reformer and economist amid the industrial and intellectual turbulence of the late nineteenth century. His best-selling Progress and Poverty (1879) captures the ravages of privileged monopolies and the woes of industrialization in a language of eloquent indignation. His reform agenda resonates as powerfully today as it did in the Gilded Age, and his impassioned prose and compelling thought inspired such diverse figures as Leo Tolstoy, John Dewey, Sun Yat-Sen, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein. This six-volume edition of the works of Henry George assembles all his major works for the first time with new introductions, critical annotations, extensive bibliographical material, and comprehensive indexing to provide a wealth of resources for scholars and reformers.

Volume 1 of The Annotated Works of Henry George includes an introduction to the six-volume series that focuses on the social context for George’s political economy, as well as the public and private struggles that George faced. Tension between the dream of economic justice and different techniques to realize it proved a continuing challenge for the Georgist movement after its heady early years.

Volume 1 presents three major works by George and new essays to provide context. George wrote Our Land and Land Policy (1871) while still a journalist in California. Fred Foldvary shows that George, even as a neophyte economist, wrote with uncanny insight and analytical skill. In The Irish Land Question (1881), George dove into the maelstrom of Irish land policy. Jerome Heavey provides the essential clarification of the history and politics of Irish land law and explains why George’s remedy was not adopted. Property in Land (1885) incorporates the debate between George and the eighth Duke of Argyll. Brian Hodgkinson provides the historical and philosophical setting for this exchange between the Scottish aristocratic landowner and the American “Prophet of San Francisco.”

Francis K. Peddle is professor of philosophy, Dominican University College, Ottawa.

William S. Peirce is professor emeritus of economics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland.