Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review‘At a time when mainstream economists have practically abandoned the teaching of the history of economic thought in numerous economics undergraduate university programs internationally, professors Hassan Bougrine and Louis-Philippe Rochon should be commended for trying to reverse this tendency. They have brought together a truly first-class international group of distinguished non-mainstream economists to counter this growing collective amnesia in the economics profession by presenting and reassessing not only past developments in economic thinking going as far back as the eighteenth century, but also by analyzing contemporary schools of thought. This is a book that can be used as a textbook or as an additional source of stimulating reading, especially appropriate for students enrolled in any undergraduate course covering the broad field of economic thought, both historical and contemporary.’ -- Mario Seccareccia, University of Ottawa, Canada and Editor of the International Journal of Political Economy
‘Economics claims to be a regularly advancing science. Its history will be a story of progress. We look to the early thinkers – the Classics – largely for anticipations of our advanced scientific work. Not so in this book; it does show the progress of the mainstream – but it is progress up a blind alley; and we see a return to the Classics, but it is to find the point at which the discipline went off the rails. An alternative, vigorous and progressive picture of the economy is presented in well-written and well-researched articles, focusing on a good selection of the greatest economists. The book presents a good account of the actual state of the discipline; far from being a regularly advancing science, it is a sometimes chaotic scene of intellectual conflict, fascinating and very exciting at times!’ -- Edward J. Nell, New School for Social Research, US
‘It’s always a good time to read a book on the history of economic thought. At least for the sake of history, which revives the narratives rooted in both language and imagination; and suggests the taste for adventure, grounded in research and discovery. The merit of this book is to bring us into this journey using fourteen suggestions cast in a thematic way. Taken as a whole, the book unearths economics as a sort of lost civilization; read just in specific chapters, each appears as an intriguing detail inspiring for further inquiries. Structure and brilliant exposure make the book interesting to students and scholars. They are both exposed to the evidence of a process that through successive stratifications built the meaning of economics: by the exercise of memory all fragments become pillars of knowledge. No need to decide winners or losers, just the same ambivalent emotion to discover that the open questions for our future are still so like those of the great thinkers who preceded us.’ -- Anna-Maria Variato, University of Bergamo, Italy
Table of ContentsContents: Introduction to A Brief History of Economic Thought 1 Hassan Bougrine and Louis-Philippe Rochon PART I THE HISTORY OF ECONOMICS BEFORE KEYNES 1 The Mercantilists and Physiocrats 4 Hassan Bougrine 2 The Classical School 14 Suranjana Nabar-Bhaduri and Matías Vernengo 3 Karl Marx and the Marxist School 35 Scott Carter 4 The Neoclassical School 54 Hassan Bougrine PART II KEYNES AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 5 John Maynard Keynes 74 Amitava Dutt 6 Michał Kalecki 94 Malcolm Sawyer 7 Thorstein Bunde Veblen 112 Guglielmo Forges Davanzati 8 Joseph Alois Schumpeter 125 Nicola De Liso 9 Karl Polanyi: The Place of the Economy in Society 148 Claus Thomasberger PART III THE HISTORY OF ECONOMICS AFTER KEYNES 10 The Keynesian School and the Neoclassical Synthesis 173 John E. King 11 Milton Friedman and the Monetarist School 193 Sergio Rossi 12 The Rational Expectations School 211 William McColloch and Matías Vernengo 13 The New Keynesian School 228 Steven Pressman 14 The Post-Keynesian School 246 Louis-Philippe Rochon Author index 273 Subject index 278
