Essays in Our Changing Order

<p><em>Essays in Our Changing Order </em>is the ninth volume in the collected works of America's pre-eminent social scientist. Each volume has a new opening essay in this case a comprehensive review of Veblen's works by Scott Bowman that stands by itself as a premier statement. Using an innovative framework Bowman sees Veblen as concerned with three unifying themes: the dynamic interrelationships between instinct habits of thought environment and social change in human evolution; the essential contradiction between business and industry sustained by the instinctual dominance of pecuniary exploit over workmanlike efficiency; and the role of ideological and animistic thinking in human affairs.</p><p>This volume of Veblen's most important studies published posthumously in 1936 illustrates and embellishes the themes Bowman outlines in a variety of ways and is remarkable for its contemporanity and literary freshness. Veblen's editor Leon Ardzrooni divides the work into three major segments: essays on economics including the history of the field; miscellaneous papers which nearly all come to rest on matters of religion and philosophy; and what Ardzrooni calls war essays which again reveal a very worldly and wise observer of current events and critic of national policies. What is so astonishing is the timeliness of these seemingly time bound concerns: whether dealing with the condition of women the intellectual contributions of Jews farm labor and unions or the meaning of the Bolshevik Revolution Veblen confronts us with insights into still-unfinished business.</p>