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Published by EH.NET (August 2003) 
 
Lionel Robbins, _A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures_, edited 
by Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 
University Press, 2000. xxviii + 375 pp. $22.95 (paperback) ISBN: 
0-691-07014-8. 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Bradley W. Bateman, Department of Economics, 
Grinnell College. <[log in to unmask]> 
 
It is difficult to read these lectures without reflecting on their 
commercial success. With this paperback printing and over 5,000 copies 
sold, the lectures represent a rare achievement in the world of university 
press publishing and an even more rare achievement in the history of 
economic thought. Although paperback editions of university press books 
have became a commonplace, few books in the history of economics achieve 
the kind of success that this book is enjoying. For that matter, how many 
books in intellectual history run to a fifth printing? 
 
What makes the book so successful? After all, it is not obvious that a full 
year course of thirty-three lectures in intellectual history given by an 80 
year old, retired economics professor at the London School of Economics 
would make a publishing success. The lectures exist only because they were 
taped by Robbins's grandson, who was a student at the LSE. The book 
consists of verbatim transcriptions of Robbins's lectures from 1979-1981; 
one can easily imagine this material being dry as bones and not well-suited 
for publication. 
 
One reason for their success might have to do with the fame of the 
lecturer. Lionel Robbins was perhaps the most well known (living) economist 
in Britain in the postwar era. He was active as a public figure in many 
arenas (e.g., the rapid expansion of the new public universities in 
Britain) and served as the chairman of the _Financial Times_ from 
1961-1970. He was widely respected as an adviser on economic policy, the 
arts, education, and the finance of charitable organizations. 
 
Still, one can imagine that a lecture series by someone of Robbins's 
stature might not become a publishing success. Many "good and great" people 
have published books that did not make a second printing, much less a fifth 
one. So what sets these lectures and this book apart? The simple answer is 
Robbins's passion. 
 
Robbins obviously loved the history of economic thought, but the passion 
that shows through on each page of this book is more than a passion for the 
_history_ of economics. Robbins loved the discipline of economics itself, 
and the lectures reflect the gusto with which he had spent his life 
pursuing its mastery. Robbins often makes asides in the lectures about the 
rarity of a particular text that he has brought to the lecture hall to read 
from that day, and he also talks about the many pamphlets and books that he 
helped to have reprinted through the London School of Economics or the 
Royal Economic Society. In short, Robbins devoted himself to the 
intellectual discovery of the discipline, and these lectures tell the story 
of what he found in a lifetime of exploring. 
 
Of course, not everyone will like what Robbins found. The whole story, from 
its beginnings in Plato and Aristotle, to its conclusion in Marshall, 
Fisher, and Wicksell, points toward the eventual construction of modern 
neoclassical economics: marginal analysis and monetary economics are the 
ultimate desiderata of economic analysis. Robbins tells his version of the 
approach to these desiderata from a unique perspective as he was, for 
instance, well read in the German Historicists (younger and older) and had 
a grasp of the Austrian literature that is rare among Anglo-American 
economists. 
 
Robbins's careful reconstruction of the approach to the neoclassicism that 
ultimately reigned over the second half of the twentieth century will not 
satisfy all tastes. Marxists, Sraffians, post-Keynesians, and 
Institutionalists will find cold comfort in this version of how economics 
became what it was in Robbins's eyes. It is not just that the heroes of the 
alternative schools of thought get short shrift, it is also that Robbins 
explains with clarity and conviction why he held the views that he did. 
 
Steven Medema (University of Colorado- Denver) and Warren Samuels (Michigan 
State University) are to be highly commended for their excellent editorial 
work in bringing these lectures to the reading public. They have tracked 
down each passage that Robbins quotes in the lectures and provide the full 
bibliographic citation for it. Their passion for their editorial task was 
perfectly matched to Robbins's own passion for his task. The result is an 
unexpectedly excellent volume on how modern marginalism and monetary 
economics were discovered. 
 
Bradley W. Bateman is the Gertrude B. Austin Professor of Economics at 
Grinnell College. 
 
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Published by EH.Net (August 2003). All EH.Net reviews are archived at 
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