Karl Polanyi in Vienna: 2nd Edition

Karl Polanyi's seminal critique of the domination of the market has assumed a new urgency. This work contains a selection of papers that were presented at the Fifth Karl Polanyi International Conference on re-reading The Great Transformation through themes such as globalisation, the privatisation of the state, the crisis of democracy and alternative approaches to inclusionary citizenship; also presented are memories on the life and work of Polanyi's wife, Ilonya Duczynska, and archival material on the Polanyi family in Vienna.

Part One of this second edition contains a selection of papers on re-reading The Great Transformation that were presented at the Fifth Karl Polanyi International Conference held in Vienna. Polanyi's seminal critique of the perilous consequences of the subordination of social, cultural and environmental human needs to the calculus of the market principal has assumed a new urgency. Globalisation, the privatisation of the state, the crisis of democracy, the urgency of re-launching development in the third world, lessons of transitions to market economies in Russia and East Europe and alternative approaches to inclusionary citizenship in a world of cultural diversities are the themes explored by these international scholars.

Part Two presents memories and tributes delivered to the Vienna conference on the life and work of Ilonya Duczynska, Karl Polanyi's beloved wife, political activist, writer, translator, and sovereign revolutionary, to whose help and criticism he dedicated The Great Transformation. In accordance with the title of this volume, the editors have added archival material on the life of the Polanyis in Vienna from 1920 to 1936, including memoirs and letters in translation from German and Hungarian and selections from Ilona's unpublished papers. This second edition also includes new material by Karl Polanyi, by Kenneth McRobbie, and by Polanyi's daughter Kari Polanyi Levitt.

KENNETH MCROBBIE is a poet and historian who teaches cultural studies and intellectual history at the University of British Columbia. He collaborated with Karl and Ilona Polanyi in a volume of English translations of Hungarian poetry The Plough and the Pen, and edited Volume 4 of this series: Humanity, Society and Commitment.

KARI POLANYI LEVITT is a political economist specialising in development studies who taught for many years at the University of the West Indies and in the Economics Department of McGill University, where she is now Emeritus Professor. She co-founded the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy at Concordia University, Montreal, and edited the first volume of this series: The Life and Work of Karl Polanyi.

This is the second edition of Volume Eight in the series Critical Perspectives on Historic Issues.