Sold For $833
*Includes Buyers Premium
Pioneering British mathematician and mechanical engineer (1791–1871) whose Difference Engine and Analytical Engine are generally acknowledged as the first programmable computers. Scarce first edition book: On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage. First edition. London: Charles Knight, 1832. Hardcover bound in the publisher's original moiré-textured plum cloth, with gilt-stamped title and price ("6 s.") on the spine, 4.5 x 7, 320 pages plus one advertising leaf in the rear. The engraved title-page incorporates a medallion portrait of Roger Bacon. Book condition: G-/None, with a cracked front hinge, bumped and worn corners, heavy foxing to title page, dampstaining to boards, sunning to spine, some splitting to the cloth on the front joint, and an ink notation opposite the title page. Accompanied by a later slipcase.
From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: ''Economy' was a product of a conscientious and detailed survey of factories and workshops in England and on the continent prompted by the demands for precision in the construction of his first calculating engine. The work is not a thesis on macroeconomic theory but an encyclopaedic record of craft, manufacturing, and industrial processes, as well as an analysis of the domestic organization of factories. He advocated the decimalization of currency, foresaw the role of tidal power as an energy source, and predicted the exhaustion of coal reserves, later commenting that if posterity failed to find a substitute for coal then it deserved to be frostbitten. 'Economy' was a turning point in economic writing and firmly established Babbage as a leading authority of the industrial movement.'
An influential early work of operational research, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures discusses the organization of industrial production. The work describes what is now called the 'Babbage principle,' pointing out commercial advantages available with more careful division of labor. The book's success established Babbage as an expert in political economy, with the work influencing both John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx.
