Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) is one of the 20th century’s most discerning economic historians. He was born in Vienna and raised in Budapest and left his position as senior editor of Vienna’s leading financial and economic weekly in 1933, due to political unrest. He became a British citizen, taught for Oxford and London Universities, and held visiting chairs at Bennington College and Columbia University. He is coauthor of Christianity and the Social Revolution; author of The Great Transformation; Trade and Market in Early Empires (with C. Arnsberg and H. Pearson) and posthumously, Dahomey and the Slave Trade (with A. Rotstein). His work has continued to speak to readers long after his death and is considered to be some of the most original and poignant social and economic theory of his time.