Every historian of economics who contributed to the discussion on the 
Australian reclassification of the History of Economic Thought on this list 
seems to agree that HET should maintain a strong connection, both theoretically 
and academically, with economics.

This contrasts with the HET-as-science-studies program that has been at the 
centre of the debate in last few years, and that has been supported by several 
leading scholars in the field.

As is probably familiar to the readers of this list, one of the main tenets of 
the HET-as-science-studies program is the belief that historians of economics 
could break away from economists and economic departments, and be welcomed by 
different scholarly communities such as those of historians, philosophers, 
political scientists, or sociologists.

To a certain extent the decision of the Australian Bureau of Statistics may be 
seen as an implementation of the HET-as-science-studies program, and the strong 
reaction of HET scholars to that decision may be read as a manifestation of the 
awareness that this program is not a winning strategy for our field.

An alternative strategy, much more in line with the letters sent in opposition 
to the Australian relocation of HET, emerges in contributions to the symposium 
on ?The Future of the History of Economics: Young Scholars? Perspective? that 
was organized by Paola Tubaro and Erik Angner at the ESHET 2006 Conference, and 
which is to appear in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

The symposium contains an Introduction by Tubaro and Angner, a paper by Nuno 
Palma on ?History of Economics or Selected History of Economics??, a paper by 
Eric Schliesser on ?Philosophy and a Scientific Future of the History of 
Economics?, and a contribution by myself entitled ?More Economics, Please: 
We?re Historians of Economics?.

The entire symposium in a pre-print version can be found at 
http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~angner/future.html

Ivan Moscati