Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen

Amidst cascading global financial and political crises of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries, scholars have turned for insight to the work of the radical American thinker, Thorstein Veblen. Inspired by an abundance of new research, social scientists from multiple disciplines have displayed a heightened appreciation for Veblen’s importance and value for contemporary social, economic and political studies. "The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen," edited with an introduction by Sidney Plotkin, is a stimulating addition to this new body of Veblen scholarship. The essays in the first part consider Veblen’s method, philosophy and values. Sociologist Erkki Kilpinen peers deeply into Veblen’s highly original theory of action and its implications for a sociological understanding of "the instinct of workmanship." In contrast, economist William Waller, building on contemporary work in evolutionary economics and psychology, urges a considerably more bio-psychological interpretation of Veblen’s instinct theory. Intellectual historians Rick Tilman and Kohl Glau, exploring the secular foundations of Veblen’s moral theory, furnish a sharp critique of recent efforts to wed Vebl