IMAGINING POVERTY: QUANTIFICATION AND THE DECLINE OF PATERN

By Sandra Sherman

An interdisciplinary study of public attitudes towards the poor in Britain between 1790 and 1835. Sandra Sherman reconsiders a question that has challenged social historians for years: what changes (political, economic and philosophical) lead to the New Poor Law of 1834? As new, scientific methods of regulating the poor were adopted - such as statistics, cost accounting, and cost-benefit analyses - old fashioned paternalism gave way to newer modalities in which the poor were not addressed as individuals but instead were managed en masse. The poor became poverty, a political/economic condition that could be managed from a distance by professionals who had no contact with individuals and made no accommodations to them.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814250831
• ISBN13: 9780814250839
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Ohio State University Press
• Length: 324 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.0"