------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------  
Published by EH.NET (January 2006)  
  
Gianni Vaggi and Peter Groenewegen, _A Concise History of Economic   
Thought: From Mercantilism to Monetarism_. New York: Palgrave   
Macmillan, 2003. xvi + 339 pp. $105 (cloth), ISBN: 0-333-99936-3.  
  
Reviewed for EH.NET by David Andrews, Department of Economics, SUNY-Oswego.  
  
  
Two distinguished historians of economics, Gianni Vaggi of the   
University of Pavia and Peter Groenewegen of the University of   
Sydney, have collaborated on a new textbook, _A Concise History of   
Economic Thought: From Mercantilism to Monetarism_. The book is   
distinctive in its length and structure. The book, which including   
the bibliography and index has fewer than 350 pages, consists of 43   
discrete accounts of individual economic authors included in 34   
chapters divided between "Classical Political Economy" and "Modern   
Developments." The accounts include basic biographical information   
and additional readings, so the descriptions of the ideas of each   
author are quite brief, often just a few pages. This brevity is   
achieved by narrowing attention to a few topics with which each   
author is "generally associated" (p. 4).  
  
Despite the use of vignettes centered on individuals, the book points   
out many connections among thinkers and tells a coherent story of the   
development of the history of economics. It begins with the   
mercantilists, who contributed by establishing the wealth of nations   
as an object of investigation and by provoking critics who became   
proto-classicals. Physiocrats and others discovered or constructed   
the central concepts of classical political economy, including   
division of labor, capital, surplus and reproduction. Adam Smith put   
the pieces together into a general theory, which was refined by David   
Ricardo and found its final expression in Karl Marx.  
  
The story then shifts directions as the authors argue that the   
Marginal Revolution involved a sharp discontinuity between Classical   
and Modern economics. The authors understand this discontinuity as a   
shift in emphasis rather than a movement from the incorrect to the   
correct or from the correct to the incorrect. They maintain that both   
classical and modern economics are important for understanding the   
economy today. The story of modern economics treats micro and macro   
separately. The micro story begins with the appearance of the   
marginal principle in exchange in the 1870s, with Jevons, Menger and   
Walras, continues with the development of the marginal productivity   
theory of distribution, and concludes with the controversies and   
complications in the 1920s and 1930s concerning costs and   
competition. The macro side of the story begins with pre-Keynesian   
monetary theory, continues with Keynes and Keynesian developments and   
concludes with Milton Friedman and monetarism.  
  
Any textbook on the history of economic thought must be selective to   
some degree, but since this book is explicitly concerned to be   
concise, the problem of selection is particularly severe. The main   
criterion for the inclusion of an economic writer appears to be   
whether or not the writer plays a role in the authors' overarching   
story of the (discontinuous) development of the history of economic   
thought. So, for example, the Institutionalists do not fit neatly   
into the story and are therefore excluded. Thorstein Veblen is   
mentioned only in passing and John R. Commons not at all. Similarly,   
there is no discussion of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, or   
Austrians after Bohm-Bawerk. On the other hand, there are full   
chapters on arguably lesser figures who do fit into the story such as   
Pierre le Pesant Sieur de Boisguilbert and Richard Cantillon, and   
sections of chapters on Dudley North, Fernando Galiani, Jean-Charles   
Simonde de Sismondi, Robert Torrens, Nassau Senior and J.H. Clapham.   
The requirements of the overarching story also appear to have led to   
some peculiarities, such as including John Stuart Mill in the section   
on the marginal revolution and locating Joseph Schumpeter among the   
pioneers of macroeconomics for his work on economic development. The   
range of authors covered is otherwise conventional.  
  
The major advantage of this book is the ease with which readers can   
get an introduction to the ideas of important figures in the history   
of economic thought. The individual vignettes are of uniformly high   
quality. They display a vast knowledge of the history of economic   
thought, as might be expected from such accomplished authors. By   
contrast with many textbooks, the writing is also impressively clear   
and to the point. The judgments of which ideas are "generally   
associated" with each author are standard. Although it is not   
difficult to quibble over a number of points of interpretation, the   
same might be said of any other textbook in the history of economic   
thought. Marxists and post-Keynesians may be disappointed with the   
treatments of Marx and Keynes, but, again, this is likely to be true   
of any textbook.  
  
The major disadvantages of this book all stem from the attempt to   
achieve the brevity and clarity that are the book's strengths: the   
limited range of thinkers covered, the limited context within which   
each thinker is considered, and the relative neglect of historical   
contexts. (The authors do make some effort to highlight the   
historical context of the various authors, but this is extremely   
difficult given the brevity of each account.)  
  
I believe this book will prove a very useful resource for teaching,   
as long as it is understood that the textbook will have to be   
supplemented with lectures and readings that provide the broader   
contexts. The additional readings at the end of each chapter are   
useful in this regard.  
  
It should be noted that there is a certain amount of sloppiness in   
the book. There are a number of typographical errors and   
misspellings. This is particularly unfortunate in a book designed for   
students. Piero Sraffa seems to have fared the worst in this regard,   
appearing as Scraffa in the table of contents and Saraffa in the   
bibliography.  
  
  
David Andrews' publications include "Keynes, Ricardo and the   
Classical Theory of Interest," _European Journal of the History of   
Economic Thought_ (2000).  
  
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