With great respect for my friend Roger Sandilands, and the bold activist
Henry George, it would not occur to me to call his Science of Political
Economy a "textbook".  It was rather an effort to establish himself as a
serious philosopher with appropriate formality and gravitas, as though one
needed  such a tome to be taken seriously.  He already was, despite his
journalistic background and style.  Many of his aficionados consider it his
greatest work.  I am not among them, it is too wordy and formalistic to be
readable.  It has brilliant sections, as when he likens the economy to a
full-rigged sailing ship (with which he had practical experience), but
overall it needs a ruthless editor.

Mason Gaffney

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Roger Sandilands
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 2:59 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Early 20th Century Principles of Economics Texts

To add to Steve Kates' highlighting of the influence in America of Henry
Clay's Economics: An Introduction for the General Reader, this text is
recommended in the fourth (1926) and 5th (1930) editions of R T Ely et al.,
Outlines of Economics. They write: "Henry Clay's Economics, a very readable
book, is available in an American edition, prepared by E. E. Agger."



One other notable American text, not mentioned so far, is Henry George's
Science of Political Economy, 1898, published shortly after George's death
in October 1897 while campaigning for mayor of New York. Though not quite
finished, it runs to 545 pages and is a comprehensive text in the classical
tradition. Book II, Ch. VIII ("Breakdown of Scholastic Political Economy")
laments the influence of protectionism in the teaching of economics in
America. He writes (p.208):
     "So general is this scholastic utterance that it may now be said that
the science of political economy, as founded by Adam Smith and taught
authoritatively in 1880, has now been utterly abandoned, its teachings being
referred to as teachings of "the classical school" of political economy, now
obsolete."



- Roger Sandilands

________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of
Steve Kates [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 1:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Early 20th Century Principles of Economics Texts

In a reply to a recent request for any centenary celebrations coming up in
economics in 2016 which was put out by the editors of the History of
Economics Review, our HET journal here in Australasia, I wrote:

"2016 is the hundredth anniversary of the publication of what I think of as
the best single introductory text on economics published in the twentieth
century, Henry Clay's Economics: an Introduction for the General Reader. I
would very happily provide you with a shortish note on this great text - you
have to see just its publication history from 1916 to 1942 when the second
edition was published to appreciate just how extraordinary it was. Used
everywhere, including Oxford and Cambridge, and not just mechanics
institutes. Also the best summary of pre-Keynesian theory available, in my
view, from any source."

I realise that the request in this instance is for "introductory economics
textbooks published in the United States" and Clay was published by
Macmillan in the UK. But looking here at my lovely first edition, the second
listing of the publisher's location reads in a way which does suggest that
it would have had a publication history within the US:

"The Macmillan Company
"New York . Boston . Chicago
"Dallas . San Francisco"

And as in indication of its presence in the United States, I also have this:
Problems and Exercises to Accompany Clay's Economics for the General Reader
and Ely's Outlines of Economics, which was published in 1921, whose author
was:

"H. Gordon Hayes
"Professor of Economics in Ohio State University"

I might point out that in this set of questions - which you might for fun
test your graduate students on for their understanding of economics - it is
Clay who is mentioned before Ely.

I will finally mention that in The Great Gatsby, a text as American as it
gets, we have this passage in reference to Gatsby himself as he stands
waiting in the library for Daisy to arrive:

"[He] looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay's Economics."

If even Gatsby was reading Clay, who wasn't? See
http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/rayfair/pdf/2000c.pdf for the more complete
story, where we find that the first American edition was not published until
1919. And as a footnote to this reply, I might mention to Ray Fair - and
this may be a very rusty memory - that Fitzgerald spent some of the years
during World War I at my old alma mater, the University of Toronto, where it
is likely the book would have been available and in use.



On 18 December 2014 at 07:20, Dan Hirschman
<[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Dear SHOE,

I'm working on an analysis of introductory economics textbooks published in
the United States between about 1890 and 1950 (the period between Marshall
and Samuelson, roughly). I've accumulated an ad hoc collection of texts
based on the holdings of my library and scattered references in the
secondary literature (Elzinga 1992, Walstad et al 1998, and Giraud 2013 in
particular), but I was hoping that there might be some more systematic way
to generate a universe of texts from which to sample. Does anyone have a
recommendation for a good source that discusses principles texts in this
period, perhaps with information on relative influence (number of editions,
course adoptions, or sales)? Does such a source exist?

Thanks very much!
Dan Hirschman
PhD Candidate
Department of Sociology
University of Michigan


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Dr Steven Kates
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