Traces how the works of Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew reflected the poor majority in mid-nineteenth-century London, citing the achievements of such influential figures as John Maynard Keyes, Paul Samuelson, and Amartya Sen.

Perfectly new: Engels and Karl Marx in the age of miracles -- Must there be a proletariat? Marshall's patron saint -- Miss Potter's profession: Webb and the housekeeping state -- Cross of gold: Fisher and the money illusion -- Creative destruction: Schumpeter and economic evolution -- The last days of mankind: Schumpeter in Vienna -- Europe is dying : Keynes at Versailles -- The joyless street: Schumpeter and Hayek in Vienna -- Immaterial mechanisms of the mind: Keynes and Fisher in the 1920s -- Magneto trouble: Keynes and Fischer in the Great Depression -- Experiments: Webb and Robinson in the 1930s -- Economists' war: Keynes and Friedman at the Treasury -- Exile: Schumpeter and Hayek in WWII -- Past and future: Keynes at Bretton Woods -- Road from serfdom: Hayek and the German miracle -- Instruments of mastery: Samuelson goes to Washington -- Grand illusion: Robinson in Moscow and Beijing -- Tryst with destiny: Sen in Calcutta and Cambridge.