Karl Polanyi

Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) was an Austrian-born economic historian, economic sociologist, and political thinker. Raised in Budapest, he earned a law degree and worked as an economic journalist in Vienna before moving to England and later the United States. From 1947 to 1953, he served as a professor of economics at Columbia University.

Polanyi is best known for The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944), a major study of the development and social consequences of the modern market economy. His other works include Trade and Markets in the Early Empires (1957), written with collaborators, and Dahomey and the Slave Trade (1966), published posthumously.