Description
Book SynopsisExamines how a community of experts identified with uncritical celebration of "free market" virtues was itself shaped, dramatically so, by government and collective action. This book describes economists' fitful efforts to sway a state apparatus where values and goals could seldom remain separate from means and technique.
Trade Review"Michael A. Bernstein has produced a first-rate analysis of the professionalization of social science. His book is not only a well-informed history of the American economics profession but also an insightful analysis of its relationship with government and a philippic against what Bernstein sees as the profession's recent self-prostitution."--Thomas K. McCraw, Journal of American History "Bernstein details a largely unknown and even unsuspected history of how our professional associations and journals strove from the beginning to engage the important questions, and of how they in the end lost the ability to do so."--James K. Galbraith, The Washington Monthly "This book is an impressive achievement."--William J. Barber, EH.Net
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix A Note on the Notes xi Prologue. Being Ignored 1 Introduction. Professional Expertise as a Historical Problem 7 1. Shaping an Authoritative Community 15 2. Prospects, Puzzles, and Predicaments 40 3. The Mobilization of Resources and Vice Versa 73 4. On Behalf of the National Security State 91 5. Statecraft and Its Retainers 115 6. Statecraft and Its Discontents 148 Epilogue. Being Ignored (Reprise) 185 Notes 195 Bibliography and Reference Abbreviations 291 Acknowledgments 343 Index 347
