Polányi, Karl
POLÁNYI, KARL
POLÁNYI, KARL (1886–1964), economist and anthropologist. His scientific work was based on the place of economics in society, and the relation between production and distribution of goods. He also made a study of kinship and religion. Born in Vienna and educated in Budapest, Polányi was the foreign editor of the Der Oesterreichische Volkswirt, Austria's leading economic journal. Later he moved to England and in 1940 to America where he taught at Bennington College (Vermont) and New York. He was a socialist and in his later years the maintenance of peace became his major concern.
Polányi's writings include The Great Transformation (1945); jointly with A. Rothstein, Dahomey and the Slave Trade (1966); and The Plough and the Pen-Writings from Hungary 1930–1956 (1963, jointly edited with Ilona Duczynszka).
bibliography:
J. Helm (ed.), Essays in Economic Anthropology Dedicated to the Memory of Karl Polanyi (1965), includes biographies.
[Joachim O. Ronall]