Book Reviews: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vols. I-IV. Edited by PIERO SRAFFA with the collaboration of M. H. DOBBS. (London and New York: Cambridge University Press. 1951. Pp. 1xiii, 447; xxi, 463; viii, 437; vii, 422. $4.75 each volume.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591295200500418
• Author: C.B. Macpherson
• Published date: 01 December 1952
• Date: 01 December 1952
• Subject Matter: Articles

673
one per cent of the world’s population today understand the basic concept
of a world state. Still fewer would be willing to transfer from the national
state to the world state the necessary sovereignty which it needs to exist.
And the Romans, except perhaps the Gracchi, were far too politically
astute to give more than scant attention to Greek political theories,
especially when they saw the practical application of them in the Greek
states of their time.
The value of this book consists in its provocative and stimulating
nature. Although it contains many value judgments with which the
historian who treasures only facts may disagree, it does drive the scholar
to the source material for a careful re-examination. To assist the reader,
Hammond has thoughtfully provided notes for each chapter in an ap-
pendix in which he discusses judiciously the researches of recent scholars.
A
selective bibliography and an index complete the book.
JACOB GEERLINGS.
University of Utah.
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vols. I-IV. Edited by
PIERO SRAFFA with the collaboration of M. H. DOBBS. (London and
New York: Cambridge University Press. 1951. Pp. 1xiii, 447; xxi,
463; viii, 437; vii, 422. $4.75 each volume.)
The first of the classical economists to make political economy an
enquiry, not into &dquo;the nature and causes of wealth,&dquo; but into &dquo;the laws
which determine the division of the produce of industry amongst the
classes who concur in its formation,&dquo; Ricardo has an unusual claim to the
interest of political scientists. Whether or not the very clarity of his
insight, frightening the class to which his writings were addressed, con-
tributed to the decline of classical theory, at least the renewal of interest
in Ricardo in our time is an encouraging indication of a desire of
economists to return to reality, that is, to political economy.
This superb new edition, which is to be completed in ten volumes,
was commissioned by the Royal Economic Society, on...