Malthus has prepared in this work the general rules of political economy. He calls into question some of the reasonings of Ricardo and attempts to defend Adam Smith.

Published in two volumes or as a set this provides a definitive scholarly variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy. It contains the full text of the first 1820 edition, including Malthus's own invaluable 70-page summary, and contains details of all the additions, omissions and emendations that occurred between the first and the second, posthumous, edition of 1836. The first edition is extremely rare, and for over 150 years confusions and disagreements have inevitably occurred in the interpretation of Malthus's economics because of the absence of any systematic record of the differences between the two editions. The editor has written a lengthy and authoritative introduction giving an account, derived mainly from contemporary correspondence, of the events and circumstances surrounding the publication of the two editions. It shows the relationship between the Principles and Malthus's other writings and activities as a political economist. There is also an editorial commentary that aims to explain the significance and origin of the alterations.

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Can national growth be sustained indefinitely? How much should government intervene in a competitive market economy? The questions John Stuart Mill raised a century and a half ago, in 1848's Principles of Political Economy, and the answers he found, are just as critical-and just as contentiously debated-today. Through a lens of what the philosopher himself termed "philosophical radicalism"-and what some today call "democratic liberalism"-Mill takes a fresh look at Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and other influential works of political thought of his time, and recasts them from a more scientific viewpoint, suggesting that such realities as the unequal distribution of wealth were not "natural" but rather a matter of human choice... choices we continue to have to make in our ever more complicated economy. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Selected Writings of John Stuart Mill and On Liberty. English philosopher and politician JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873) was one of the foremost figure of Western intellectual thought in the late 19th century. He served as an administrator in the East Indian Company from 1823 to 1858, and as a member of parliament from 1865 to 1868. Among his essays on a wide range of political and social thought are On Liberty (1859), Considerations on Representative Government (1861), and The Subjection of Women (1869).