A solid introduction if you're new to the study of political economy and general economic history. Proves the fact that in the global history of relationships between two intertwined fields, economy and politics, the leading element has been the embodiment of social relations that is the political aspect of any given society and the current predicament of the economic side being the one leading society trough the expansion of global markets is but a temporary feature of our current given society. Basically proves the historicity of capitalism.

Also, the bookwyrm page is wrong, Stiglitz wrote the prologue to this book, the author is austrian economist Karl Polanyi (altough if you've searched for this book you probably know that by now)