Matt raises a number of interesting issues about what constitutes  
scholarship in the history of economic thought. [See  
http://eh.net/pipermail/hes/2005-January/002814.html] 
 
I suspect that while everyone respects Bob's work, that he was not  
selected because of a belief by some in the organization that Bob was more  
a popularizer than a scholar of the history of thought.  My own view (not  
surprisingly) is that popularizing of the sort that Bob did (his was the  
first book that I read in economics) should be rated very highly, but that  
view is not shared by everyone. I think we might start a new thread of  
discussion entitled, What Makes a Distinguished Fellow? 
 
[I changed Dave's subject to his suggested new thread. HB] 
 
Dave Colander