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The temptation of using my native language (French) rather than the 
language of economists (American) to contribute to this thread is great: 
however, I believe the only accepted language in this list is American, 
while English is tolerated. We must not forget that language is not the 
only barrier in the 'spread' of economic ideas. If this were the case, how 
could we explain that so many German economists were discussed in Britain 
in the 1890s, even though French was better known than German in the 
English educated class. Walras was not particularly well received in 
France, and it is probably only a slight exaggeration to say that before 
1900 he had more careful readers in Cambridge than in the whole of France 
(Switzerland might be a different case). Indeed the few who had read him in 
Cambridge were able to understand his maths: not a common thing among 
French law graduates.  
 
Another barrier is context and the fact that ideas, in order to circulate 
from one country to another, generally have to be decontextualised. 
Economic ideas do not circulate only for their intrinsic merit, but also 
because they are embedded in a wider web of non-scientific beliefs to which 
they owe part of their meaning. They may circulate from one web of beliefs 
to another, but in some cases the circulation is made easier by the fact 
that the idea 'fits' well. A study of the spread (or the absence of a 
spread) of Walras in English would have to address the question of the 
'ideological' conditions for the reception of the idea of general 
equilibrium. It is a safe bet that the (French republican) ideology from 
which the idea of a general equilibrium emerged was different from the 
ideology of most of the English-speaking economists who were interested in 
Walras in the 20th century. Julien Vincent, Cambridge (UK) 
 
Julien VINCENT  
 
 
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