| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Gareth Stedman Jones. An End to Poverty? A Historical Debate. New York: Columbia University Press. 2004. Pp. x, 278. $29.50.

History is important, Gareth Stedman Jones reminds us, not only with lessons to teach us but with misconceptions to redress. Our forbears struggled with issues we face today, such as how to reconcile self-interest and equity. The first truly modern vision of how to end poverty was put forward during the French Revolution. The excesses of that era, however, derailed both the solutions and the spirit in which they were proposed, and this book follows subsequent developments. Stedman Jones argues that Enlightenment beliefs in human progress framed in both political and economic terms presented for the first time viable solutions to pauperism within an expanded notion of citizenship provided by the Americans. Whereas Christian theology had argued that the "poor will always be with us" and that they served to remind man of his charitable duties and his need for salvation, eighteenth-century theorists posited that free trade, liberty of production, and healthy competition would increase prosperity and succeed in eradicating poverty. Some were more optimistic than others. Significantly, Adam Smith believed that political reform was necessary (and not an invisible hand) for benefits to be spread equitably. Similarly, French revolutionaries offered to alleviate poverty with government-sponsered universal insurance schemes supported through taxation and brought to these proposals their knowledge of statistics and probability (Condorcet), experience with recent life insurance companies, and beliefs in the universal rights of citizenship (Thomas Paine).

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