I do believe that the history of economic thought is/will be 
relegated more and more to the history of science.  This discipline 
is barely taught in the social sciences so we should be concerned.  I 
do not blame nor will I criticize anyone in the economics profession 
for being ignorant of it or not concerned with it.  This attitude is 
the result of listening to Paul Samuelson address a HES annual 
meeting at Harvard in the 80s where he wrote off all of classical 
economics, or should I say reduced it.  With kingpins like that 
dismissing a lot of researching/writing activity in our discipline it 
is not surprising that this attitude spread.  Also, the exploitation 
of the older literature for papers may be reaching diminishing 
returns.  None of this has changed my love of history, but it has 
changed the opportunity to teach and research in the discipline.  The 
other point worth making is that economics was more concerned with 
the real side of the economy and the growth of interest in the 
nominal side of the economy as evidenced by the growth of finance in 
business schools is something about which history didn't have as much to say.

Scot Stradley