This is simple and this is unanswerable. The ramifications may not be simple but they do not alter the fundamental logic.

Multiple versions of Progress & Poverty are available on or from this website. A single table of contents cross-reference connects them all, so if you start with one of the shorter versions and decide you want to explore more deeply, you can find the corresponding or omitted sections.

The unabridged hardcopy of the book is available from http://www.schalkenbach.org or Amazon (new and used), and often on ebay.  The full text is available online at Schalkenbach's website and at http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP.html

The shortest version is a synopsis by Al Katzenberger, Jr. is available on this website, with links to related themes. A condensation by James Busey keeps George's magnificent language.

Over the years, several abridgements have been done.  One is "Significant Paragraphs from Progress and Poverty" (1928, Harry Gunnison Brown, published by Schalkenbach).   In hard copy, this little book runs 76 pages.  It begins with an appreciation of Henry George from John Dewey. If you teach economics, political science, philosophy, ethics, history or American Studies, you might want the PDF version of Significant Paragraphs, about 35 pages, suitable for a packet.

The next is the A. W. Madsen abridgement (240 pages), available in hardcopy from Schalkenbach and online with Bob Clancy's wonderful illustrations at http://www.henrygeorge.org/. An excellent course is available at the Henry George Institute (self-guiding for free, or with an email or by-mail instructor at a nominal cost).

The newest abridgement is in contemporary language, and titled "Progress and Poverty: Why there are recessions and poverty amid plenty -- and what to do about it." Bob Drake did the "thought by thought" updating and abridgement. [The "thought by thought" concept was among the inspirations for the themes section of this website.] You can read it online here, or here, check the Schalkenbach website for ordering information. A descriptive brochure is available here in two versions, one for US readers and one for those in other countries (only the ordering information varies). And you can download MP3s of this edition here.

Before you embark on these, you might want to dip into some related pieces which will provide some background.

• Henry George's Preface to the 4th Edition, 1880
• Kris Feder's introduction to the 1997 Abridged Edition
• Foreword to the 50th Anniversary Edition
• How the Book Came to Be Written, by Henry George, Jr. (1905)
• Agnes George DeMille's short biography of her grandfather: Who Was Henry George?  (introduction to the 1979 edition)
• Harry Gunnison Brown's preface to "Significant Paragraphs"
• John Dewey's Appreciation of Henry George, the introduction to "Significant Paragraphs"
• Alanna Hartzok's In the History of Thought: Henry George's "Single Tax"
• Weld Carter's Introduction to Henry George
• Albert Jay Nock's Henry George: Unorthodox American
• Joseph Cottler's The Printer and the Riddle, an excerpt from Champions of Democracy (middle school level)
• Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys to the Homes of Reformers: Henry George
• About Henry George

A zipped Microsoft word version (385kb) available at http://www.taxreform.com.au/HG/main.htm which is handy if you're hunting for a specific passage. (Askhenry is useful for that, too.)

Princeton historian Eric F. Goldman, author of Rendezvous with Destiny, a book on politics of the Progressive era, wrote this in tribute to Progress & Poverty:

from Luke North's book of poetry, Songs of the Great Adventure:

"I AM FOR MEN"
He stood for Men —
Not for parties, sections, classes;
Not for dogmas, doctrines, isms —
Nor all the minutiae of over-elaborated plans for the future,
Nor for craven caution, dissimulation, equivocation —
Patience that now outrages virtue —
Program'd ways and means which if not followed
The world may stay in hell.

He stood for Men —
For in his soul he knew the line of cleavage
Was not between the robber and the robbed —
Was not marked by external difference,
By rank or class or occupation or wealth or poverty.
He knew that poor men could be very cruel and rich men kind.
He knew the line of cleavage was in the heart — those who care and those who don't —
This Henry George who wrote "Progress and Poverty."

He stood for Men —
And was he wrong to yield no tithe to classes?
What has now become of all the appeals
To class interest, class consciousness, class solidarity?
The human heart will not respond to them — in every class are tyrants.
The human mass forgets its every interest,
Flings to the wind all self and class advantage
And goes out to die for a word.

He stood for Men —
And showed the world how to unshackle the chains that bind men.
He showed how poverty begins,
Where modern slavery has its roots,
And how to tear them up.
The earth is for all men, he said —
And his word has gone around the world —
And now it's time to act!

He stood for Men —
Not creeds and doctrines, nor all the lesser details of future contingencies.
He bared the earth to man.
It is for us to take it.
He tried to gain it, and was beaten back to his death.
Now we will gain it —
At whatever cost!

One might reasonably wonder why relatively few high schools or colleges today expose their students to such an experience. (If you think these might be merely quaint agrarian ideas, click here!)

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