A dubious science

"[Book title] tells the story of nineteenth-century French political economy, an academic discipline that aspired to the status and authority of a "hard" science alongside such disciplines as physics and chemistry. It chronicles political economists' encounter with "the social question"--all those unexpected social consequences of nineteenth-century industrialization--which offered concrete evidence that industrial capitalism showed few signs of guaranteeing happiness and economic success to all productive members of society."--Back cover.