Nick Cowen

Historical novel, first of a trilogy, set in south-east Wiltshire in 1633. Robert Penny, a twice-widowed father, returns to the parish of his birth with his eleven-year-old son Samuel. Struggling to find food for the table, Robert quickly becomes burdened with the unpaid duties of Parish Waywarden inheriting a legal responsibility to survey and maintain the parish highways or answer to the Justices. As he commences this onerous task, he discovers a young woman's body in a highway ditch. Whilst Robert Penny tries to rebuild his family reputation and regain the pew in church, will he instead be charged with the murder of this stranger to the parish?

This timely and provocative book challenges the conventional wisdom that neoliberal capitalism is incompatible with social justice. Employing public choice and market process theory, Nick Cowen systematically compares and contrasts capitalism with socialist alternatives, illustrating how proponents of social justice have decisive reasons to opt for a capitalism guided by neoliberal ideas. Cowen shows how general rules of property and voluntary exchange facilitate widespread cooperation. Revisiting the works of John Rawls, he offers an interdisciplinary reconciliation of Rawlsian principles with liberal democracy by introducing 'robust property-owning democracy', a new form of governance that aims to achieve social justice via practical, liberal means. Chapters address the knowledge problem and the incentive problem that emerge when aiming for a fair distribution of social resources and demonstrate how everyday political bargaining can help achieve just outcomes for all. Utilising insights from philosophy, politics and economics to show the role of market institutions and constitutional government in producing social justice, this book is crucial reading for academics, researchers and students of PPE and the political sciences. Its practical policy proposals will further benefit policymakers interested in mechanisms that spread the benefits of economic growth equitably.

When the Napoleonic wars denied young Englishmen the opportunity to undertake the continental 'Grand Tour' many set about exploring their own land, often on foot, and some wrote accounts of what they saw and what interested them. This historical novel, originally published in three parts between 2005 and 2013, purports to be such an account, written by a young man fascinated by antiquity. Each of the three accounts were snapped up by a growing band of enthusiasts and now the trilogy is published in a single volume for the first time, with a description of the real-life characters who appear in its pages.In1807 South Wiltshire and its characters form the backdrop for young Londoner Henry Chalk as he takes to the footpaths and turnpikes in a trio of pedestrian excursions. With danger snapping at his heels the young pedestrian stumbles upon the founding fathers of archaeology who are intent on opening every prominent burial mound in the Stonehenge landscape. Love and mystery entwine the young walker like an ever-tightening creeper as he explores the sunken lanes and glaring chalklands, certain that the answer to mankind's story lies not in the barrows but in the plough soil, as he finds the ancient flint tools from a forgotten population. As the young hero puts pen to paper to record his adventures, his own story unfolds whilst a shocking denouement awaits.

A strange interdependence has been forged between local authority lifer, Victor Wayland, public rights of way officer and the enigmatic Harrison, a young and streetwise volunteer. Harrison and his gang have torn up the volunteer's rule book and are finding their own ways and means to sort out the thornier issues of public rights of way maintenance. Meanwhile Victor is really starting to feel part of something...he's just not sure what that something is...and can a sedentary population really be persuaded to heave themselves up from the sofa and take their first steps towards walking back to happiness? They will if Harrison has got anything to do with it.