scholarly journals Book Review: Robert J. Barro and Rachel M. McCleary, The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-34
Author(s):  
Karen Ferreira-Meyers
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Moral Philosopher ◽  
Money Markets ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Interesting Approach

A preface, eight chapters, notes, a bibliography, and an index are what constitute Barro and McCleary’s in-depth analysis of the “wealth” of religions. The book’s title is very attractive, and at the same time quite provocative, as politics, economics and religions are widely debated topics in most societies these days, but people remain reserved to tackle certain aspects, in particular the link between money, markets and religious beliefs and belonging. Bringing together the views of an economist, Barro, and a moral philosopher, McCleary, leads to an interesting approach to religion as different from a social construct, the main idea upon which reflecting and debating religion has been based upon for years, if not centuries.

A Collapse in Weimar Scholarship

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 159-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald D. Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Princeton University

The purpose of these remarks is to contribute to the exposure of the egregious errors, tendentious misconstruals, and outright inventions contained in David Abraham's Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis (Princeton, 1981). Clearly, therefore, this is not a normal book review. I would not consider it appropriate to review this book in any case, since I read two versions of the manuscript for the Princeton University Press in 1979 and recommended its publication. I did so despite severe disagreements with the methodology and the argument. I assumed, however, that the scholarship on which the argument was based was sound and respectable and that the argument of the book would stimulate fruitful discussion. Since publication, the book has been widely reviewed, and while reviewers have divided over the theses of the book, most have praised its scholarship. The notable exception was Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., who must be credited with first drawing attention to the book's deplorable scholarship. Turner, as well as another scholar whose review is soon to appear, Ulrich Nocken, had the advantage of knowing many of the documents with which Abraham “worked,” and thus had reason to be suspicious. Most other reviewers, as was true in my own case, operated under the usual assumptions, namely, that a scholar with a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from a respected institution who was teaching at Princeton University, where high tuitions are paid for instruction by carefully chosen persons of demonstrated competence, would operate in conformity with accepted scholarly standards.

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