Although this book has been planned and written to be read and used in its own right, Economy, Polity, and Society and its companion volume, History, Religion, and Culture, form a two-book set whose scope is signalled by their common sub-title, British Intellectual History 1750–1950. The primary aim of the publication of these two volumes is to bring together the work of many of the leading scholars in what has become a flourishing field in the last couple of decades. But their appearance is also intended to be a way of paying tribute to the impact on that field of the work of two individuals in particular, John Burrow and Donald Winch. Winch and Burrow were for many years the animating spirits of a small group who, at the time, all taught at the University of Sussex, a group which has, in consequence, sometimes been referred to as ‘the Sussex School’ (a label whose appropriateness is discussed in the ‘General Introduction’). In the year 2000 both men reach the retiring-age of sixty-five, and although they will both, we may hope, long continue to be active and prominent in the practice of intellectual history, a collection of their friends and admirers did not want to let this joint landmark pass unrecognised. A pleasing consequence of this originating purpose is that all the contributors to these two volumes have some connection – personal, intellectual, or institutional – with Intellectual History at Sussex and/or with Burrow and Winch as individuals, whether as students, colleagues, or friends.