Economics and Society - All titles

This book takes a critical political economy approach to understanding food insecurity in Canada and the UK. It provides a vision of a future whereby public control over the distribution of resources –including food – will eliminate food insecurity and other conditions that threaten health.

Combining robust evidence with real-life stories, this book reveals the shocking impact of austerity policies on life expectancy and offers an optimistic vision of what can be done to restore life expectancy and reduce health inequality.

Revisiting philosophical developments, historical figures and events, including Adam Smith, colonialism and modernity, this interdisciplinary book presents a ‘loving critique’ of society. It shows how learning to love better is key to releasing ourselves from the alienating grip of the market.

The past two decades have seen a global financial crisis, increasing levels of inequality, a pandemic and the intensification of the climate emergency. As debate rages about how to ensure a fairer society, this book asks where we want to be in 20 years’ time and how we might get there.

As outrage over the socially damaging practices of technology companies intensifies, this book asks what it actually means to hold a 'monopoly' in the tech world and offers an in-depth analysis of how these corporate giants are produced, financialized, and regulated.

Agri-food systems in the Global North are experiencing a wave of technological innovation in food production and ways of eating. This book is the first to analyse technological and socio-economic change in leading food sectors and it concludes that despite innovation, the food industry is adapting too slowly to the challenges of climate change.

This book scrutinises the narratives created around stealing jobs, opening new debates on the role of automation and migration policies. The authors reveal how the advances in AI and demands for constant flow of immigrant workers eradicate political and working rights, propagating fears over job theft and ownership.

Carrie Manning’s illuminating book examines how policies to limit taxation at state and local levels in the US have direct and lasting consequences for equity, accountability, and ultimately for democracy.

Drawing from interviews and survey data across the EU and the UK, this in-depth study explores how worker instability is perceived and experienced, and how this “perception” in turn affects individuals’ economic and social situation. Using intersectional analysis, the authors identify groups who are more prone to labour market risks.

Many people living in rural areas face hardship but the UK’s welfare system is poorly adapted to meet their needs, with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and cutbacks exacerbating pressures. This book combines person-based and place-based approaches to tackling rural poverty.

Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, this book sheds much-needed light on how sustainability-oriented households balance priorities and get things done in day-to-day life, offering crucial insights about eco-conscious living at an individual level.

After Brexit brings together Gamble’s most influential writings on British politics and political economy from the last 40 years, reflecting on issues that animate British politics, from the decline of the economy and reshaping the welfare state to the transformation of political parties and devolution to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.