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The Numbers Wonk as Existential Hero
Author(s) -
Strawser Cornelia
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
public budgeting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.694
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1540-5850
pISSN - 0275-1100
DOI - 10.1111/0275-1100.00014
Subject(s) - hero , existentialism , government (linguistics) , period (music) , management , philosophy , law , political science , literature , art , economics , aesthetics , linguistics
Did you think there was once a golden age of honest budgeting? Well, it wasn't in Britain before or during World War I, according to a classic novel about the period. The novelist Ford Madox Ford placed the hero of his tale in a government career in statistics and budgeting. It seems like a strange choice for a hero, but the dilemmas of that career are the conditions against which the protagonist must struggle to maintain his integrity.