Crusoe and His Consequences

"The most extraordinary history book of the year."

- Eric Hobsbawm on Dunkerley's Americana

"A rich and compelling examination of Daniel Defoe's 1719 literary classic"

- Peace News

"[A] radical demystification of Daniel Defoe’s iconic work"

- Morning Star
$20.00

Adding to cart… The item has been added
  • 273 pages
  • Paperback ISBN 9781682192023
  • E-book ISBN 9781682192054

about the book

300 years after it was first published, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe remains hugely influential and hotly debated. Since its initial release in 1719, discussions have surrounded the novel's depiction of individual solitude and work, colonial and racial relations, and mankind's relationship with the rest of the animal world.

To this day, Crusoe's depiction of self-reliance and "rugged individualism" is often idealized in economics textbooks, mainstream politics, and popular culture. But many have also criticized this approach, most notably Karl Marx, who was one of the first in decrying the efforts of classical economists to extract the "rational actor" and "marginalist calculator" from the island castaway without reference to social history.

Alongside a precis with surprising revelations for those not familiar with the detail of the story, and a rich biographical sketch of its creator, Crusoe and His Consequences draws on a range of writers, including Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas, to bring the debates surrounding Defoe's first novel vividly to life.

"No-one writing today in English on Latin America can match Dunkerley's mix of deep conviction, keen eye for human and humanizing detail, and analytical rigor and exuberant wit". - John Henry Coatsworth, provost, Columbia University

About The Author / Editor

James Dunkerley OBE is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary, University of London, and former Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London. He has written extensively on history and politics in the Americas. Previous titles include The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador, Power in the Isthmus, and Americana: The Americas in the World, Around 1850.

Read An Excerpt

It's just possible that you have already read the full, unabridged text of Daniel Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, published on 25 April 1719. You might, however, be awaiting an experience like that of the great historian Christopher Hill:

Those who, like myself, first encountered Robinson Crusoe in an abridged edition are surprised when they read the original. It seems a very long time before we get to the point. An account of the hero's early life occupies the first 50 or so pages, one-seventh of Part I, before he is shipwrecked on his island. The original, moreover, looks much more like a protestant homily or moral fable-a 'parable' as the Preface to Part II describes it-than the abridgements which made it such a popular children's story.

Yet, if ". . . almost everybody who picks up Robinson Crusoe can outline some of its episodes before he starts reading", that applies only to what Hill calls Part I. It is very unlikely indeed that you have read Part II, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, published on 20 August 1719; and, unless you are a dedicated Defoe scholar or greatly attracted to the intellectual history the paranormal, it is ardently to be hoped that you have not sought literary reward in Part III, Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the Angelick World, published on 6 August 1720. This last volume was something of a post hoc facto explication of Crusoe's-never Defoe's-composition of the previous volumes. Even more rambling than them, and with absolutely minimal pretence at providing adventure-added, it soon disappeared into an afterlife of consolidated editions. Part II was also less popular than its predecessor but throughout much of the eighteenth century continued to be bound together with it.

in the media

Crusoe and His Consequences

"The most extraordinary history book of the year."

- Eric Hobsbawm on Dunkerley's Americana

"A rich and compelling examination of Daniel Defoe's 1719 literary classic"

- Peace News

"[A] radical demystification of Daniel Defoe’s iconic work"

- Morning Star
$20.00

Add to Cart

Adding to cart… The item has been added

about the book

300 years after it was first published, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe remains hugely influential and hotly debated. Since its initial release in 1719, discussions have surrounded the novel's depiction of individual solitude and work, colonial and racial relations, and mankind's relationship with the rest of the animal world.

To this day, Crusoe's depiction of self-reliance and "rugged individualism" is often idealized in economics textbooks, mainstream politics, and popular culture. But many have also criticized this approach, most notably Karl Marx, who was one of the first in decrying the efforts of classical economists to extract the "rational actor" and "marginalist calculator" from the island castaway without reference to social history.

Alongside a precis with surprising revelations for those not familiar with the detail of the story, and a rich biographical sketch of its creator, Crusoe and His Consequences draws on a range of writers, including Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas, to bring the debates surrounding Defoe's first novel vividly to life.

"No-one writing today in English on Latin America can match Dunkerley's mix of deep conviction, keen eye for human and humanizing detail, and analytical rigor and exuberant wit". - John Henry Coatsworth, provost, Columbia University

About The Author / Editor

James Dunkerley OBE is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary, University of London, and former Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London. He has written extensively on history and politics in the Americas. Previous titles include The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador, Power in the Isthmus, and Americana: The Americas in the World, Around 1850.

Read An Excerpt

It's just possible that you have already read the full, unabridged text of Daniel Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, published on 25 April 1719. You might, however, be awaiting an experience like that of the great historian Christopher Hill:

Those who, like myself, first encountered Robinson Crusoe in an abridged edition are surprised when they read the original. It seems a very long time before we get to the point. An account of the hero's early life occupies the first 50 or so pages, one-seventh of Part I, before he is shipwrecked on his island. The original, moreover, looks much more like a protestant homily or moral fable-a 'parable' as the Preface to Part II describes it-than the abridgements which made it such a popular children's story.

Yet, if ". . . almost everybody who picks up Robinson Crusoe can outline some of its episodes before he starts reading", that applies only to what Hill calls Part I. It is very unlikely indeed that you have read Part II, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, published on 20 August 1719; and, unless you are a dedicated Defoe scholar or greatly attracted to the intellectual history the paranormal, it is ardently to be hoped that you have not sought literary reward in Part III, Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the Angelick World, published on 6 August 1720. This last volume was something of a post hoc facto explication of Crusoe's-never Defoe's-composition of the previous volumes. Even more rambling than them, and with absolutely minimal pretence at providing adventure-added, it soon disappeared into an afterlife of consolidated editions. Part II was also less popular than its predecessor but throughout much of the eighteenth century continued to be bound together with it.

in the media