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Pioneering British mathematician and mechanical engineer (1791–1871) whose Difference Engine and Analytical Engine are generally acknowledged as the first programmable computers. Uncommon second edition book: On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage. Second edition enlarged. London: Charles Knight, 1832. Hardcover bound in half-calf with marbled boards, 4.5 x 7, 387 pages plus one page of advertisements in the rear. The engraved title-page incorporates a medallion portrait of Roger Bacon. In the preface to the greatly extended second edition, Babbage complains that the booksellers, instead of aiding, impeded the sale of the first edition. The booksellers inserted a reply after the preface to show that 'the assertion is entirely devoid of truth.' Babbage's riposte is the third edition. Book condition: VG-/None, with mottled staining to the title page, wear to corners, rubbing to boards, and an engraved "Royal Military College" bookplate to the front pastedown.
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.
