The broad brush claim of Keynes vs. the classics was a common theme in 
both the introductory text and macro text that were assigned in my 
university courses in the early 1960s. I later learned that the textbook 
phenomenon, designed for a two-semester macro-micro course at 
universities, was a new invention. I take it that this started with 
Samuelson's text and that other writers -- the most popular in the 1960s 
being Campbell McConnell -- made the task of teaching the two-semester 
course to a large number of bodies much easier. This invention would 
have been important to untutored teachers during the 1960s and beyond, 
when student demand was rising faster than econ faculty supply of such 
teaching.

In other words, my casual reconstruction sees the rise of what we might 
call "the myth of Keynes and the classics" being due mostly to the rise 
of the textbook. Employing the myth, from this point of view, was a 
means for teachers to instill a sense of great importance to the new 
macroeconomics. I recall vividly my macro teacher believing that Keynes 
had instituted a scientific revolution and that we students were so 
lucky to be in the vanguard. Someone in my class might be chosen as the 
lead government policy maker in the future. If so, one of my classmates 
would have an opportunity to apply the new Keynesian science in order to 
guide the macroeconomy to high economic growth, low unemployment, and 
minimum inflation. Being a non-skeptic at the time, I remember thinking 
of a career as an economist in the same way that I used to think about 
fighting against the non-Christians when we sang "Onward Christian 
Soldiers" at the end of mass in elementary school. (Fortunately, I did 
not choose the latter and I chose the former for an entirely different 
reason.)

Do you think my sketch of the textbook and Keynesianism is broadly true? 
If so, was it a uniquely U.S. phenomenon?

Pat Gunning