This reprinting of Professor Bowen’s classic 1948 work inaugurates a new series “Political and Social Economy.” The series will be devoted to developing a literature reflecting a humanistic point of view in economics and eco­nomic theory. It will include reprints and commissioned new works espous­ing a diversity of similarly broad-gauged and frequently nontraditional points of view. Its objective—implicit in the series title—is to increase the angle of vision of economics.
 
The purpose of Professor Bowen’s Toward Social Economy, stated in the Preface to the first edition, is “to pre­sent a view of the whole economic sys­tem, and at the same time to fit that system into place as one part or aspect of the more comprehensive social fab­ric.” It provides a framework of a com­plete course in economics for the gen­eral reader as well as the student of economics.
 
C. Addison Hickman, the coeditor of this significant new series, has con­tributed a Foreword reflecting on the importance and contemporary relevance of Professor Bowen’s work and making a case for a broad viewpoint in the formulation of economic theory and public policy.