Classics of Social Choice

Over the centuries an intriguing collection of thinkers have realized that voting and social choice are not straightforward. Yet despite the work of many distinguished contributors in this area, the subject has only become established in the last few decades. Indeed, many earlier writings were lost and their content forgotten, only to be rediscovered later and then forgotten again. This puzzling saga of intellectual history unfolds in Classics of Social Choice through these original writings. The editors have included recently discovered pieces and other major contributions—newly translated where necessary. The introduction explains who each writer was, locates him in a historical context, and analyzes his argument.

The writings of Roman lawyer and senator Pliny the Younger are included here as are those of Ramon Lull, a medieval mathematician, missionary, mystic, novelist, and poet; Nicolaus Cusanus, the son of a fifteenth-century winegrower who became a cardinal; Jean-Charles de Borda, a naval engineer; the Marquis de Condorcet, a mathematician, politician, feminist, and economist who died in the French revolutionary Terror of 1794; and Charles L. Dodgson, who became famous as Lewis Carroll. All had fundamental insight into voting and what is now called social choice.

It was only in the 1940s and 1950s that the theory of social choice was established by Duncan Black and Kenneth Arrow—whose Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded in part for this work. It is now a large and thriving branch of economics and politics. Classics of Social Choice will interest anyone working in social choice theory as well as students of medieval thought, the Enlightenment, and constitutions.

Praise / Awards

• "I have gone through Classics of Social Choice and am deeply impressed. I am delighted it is in print."
  —Gordon Tullock