An Outline of the History of Economic Thought

Our satisfaction in writing the second English edition of this book is easy to imagine: not only are we assured of the utility of our work, but also have the opportunity to enlarge and revise it. We have attempted to do this in various ways. We have removed oversights and errors; we have made a few additions and expanded a little on all chapters; we have re-written and simplified various parts which students had found obscure or difficult to understand; lastly, we have updated the bibliography, with the aim of offering useful suggestions for further reading. Our experience in the teaching of economics and its history has made one thing plain to us: that keeping the two subjects separate, if it was ever justified, is certainly not today. In the face of the crisis of the theoretical orthodoxies of the 1950s and 1960s, the flowering of innovations in recent years, and the numerous rediscoveries of traditional wisdoms, it is no longer an easy task to teach economic principles. We feel it necessary, therefore, to teach economic theory by paying careful attention to its history. We have tried to satisfy this need in our book, and this already says a great deal about the way it has been conceived. We have endeavoured to present traditional theories as living matter, as well as presenting modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths.