Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879) hadbecome a classic bestseller. translated into dozens oflanguages. The academic establishment, unable to refuteits essential points, nevertheless refused to adopt it.George had hoped, now that so many longstandingconfusions had been resolved, that his colleagues wouldrecast the science on a sensible foundation. But, theywent in other directions— so George took the task onhimself. He found, however, that he could not merely layout a "primer of political economy". Too many of thediscipline’s essential terms had been mangled bydecades of imprecise and contradictory usage. To setforth a coherent “science which treats of the nature ofwealth and the natural laws of its production anddistribution”. George re-examined economic terms andmade sure their meanings were precise and clear. He didnot set out to answer every question, but rather to build alogical superstructure that could be relied on to supportthe discipline's work for ages Io come.I shall try in this work to put in clear and systematic formthe main principles of political economy.The place I would lake is not that of a teacher. who stateswhat is to be believed, but rather that of a guide, whopoints out what by looking is to be seen. So farfromasking the reader blindly lo follow me, I would urge him toaccept no statement that he himself can doubt, and toadopt no conclusion untested by his own reason.—from the author's introduction