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