Synopses & Reviews
This is a history of economic thought from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes--but it is a history with a difference. Firstly, it is history of economic theory, not of economic doctrines. Secondly, it includes detailed Reader's Guides to nine of the major texts of economics in the effort to encourage students to become acquainted at first hand with the writings of all the great economists. This fifth edition adds new Reader's Guides to Walras' Elements of Pure Economics and Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money as well as major additions to the chapters on marginal productivity theory, general equilibrium theory and welfare economics.
Review
"It is said there is only one Mark Blaug, the doyen of the history of economic thought. There are, in fact, five, each more remarkable than his predecessor. This last edition of his magnum opus-witty, serious; iconoclastic, devout; in its core unchanged, full of new insights-is the best yet. I cannot imagine a scholar's library-or for that matter a student's-without it." Robert Heilbroner
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. Pre-Adamite economics; 2. Adam Smith; 3. Population, diminishing returns and rent; 4. Ricardo's system; 5. Say's Law and classical monetary theory; 6. John Stuart Mill; 7. Marxian economics; 8. The marginal revolution; 9. Marshallian economics: utility and demand; 10. Marshallian economics: cost and supply; 11. Marginal productivity and factor prices; 12. The Austrian theory of capital and interest; 13. General equilibrium and welfare economics; 14. Spatial economics and the classical theory of location; 15. The neoclassical theory of money, interest and prices; 16. Macroeconomics; 17. A methodological postscript.