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It is hard to imagine someone doing the History of Economics without sufficient training
in formal theory and quantitative methods to understand what economists are up to.  It is
equally difficult to imagine someone doing the
History of Economics without being familiar with Marx, Veblen, the German Historical
School, and the entire American Institutionalist and Western Marxist traditions.  Further,
given the divisions institutionalized into [political]economics it is difficult to imagine
anyone mastering formal [neoclassical?] theory and Western Marxism and not having at least
two doctorates, each  from a different school.  So, I think two doctorates, one in
"standard" the other in "heterodox" economics would seem to be a prerequsite for pursuing
the History of Economics. But, of course, it's all more difficult than that; because to do
something that is remotely objective, "real" intellectual history and not just a Whigism
in either pursuasion, one has to rise above both into simple history and epistemology
There has been very little History of Economic Thought in the information environment of
the past century and a half.  Most of what we have had is apologetics or hostile
deconstruction.  I do not say that these bodies of knowledged are not worth preserving and
augmenting, but I do think we should have a clear answer to the question, "Why?"
 
Robin Neill 
 
 
 
 
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