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