A Brief History of Economic Thought

From the Mercantilists to the Post-Keynesians

Edited by Hassan Bougrine, Full Professor, Laurentian University, Louis-Philippe Rochon, Full Professor, Laurentian University, Canada, Editor-in-Chief, Review of Political Economy and Founding Editor Emeritus, Review of Keynesian Economics

It is now widely acknowledged that history is useful, even essential, because it helps us predict the future. The history of ideas in economics, as in other fields of inquiry, plays an important role in enlightening current researchers as they endeavour to understand contemporary events and anticipate the future of human societies. This book brings together a fine collection of chapters that span contributions from forgotten classics to the most recent new thinking about critical issues such as growth, wealth, its creation and its distribution among members of society. It is A Brief History of Economic Thought, but it will certainly go a long way in helping undergraduate students and other researchers who are curious about the evolution of economic ideas over the last five centuries.

‘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