Should also point out that the family tree model used to be 
fairly comnmon in history of economic thought, didn't it?  I 
know I can recall seeing one.   
 
While it's kind of fun to try to do, here are two serious 
problems with it: 
 
1.  You have to be careful that it doesn't automatically assign 
a positivist interpretation to the process of intellectual 
change over time -- that is, a leads to b,c,d, which then lead to 
e,f,g,h,i,j -- etc.  etc. --  
      That's why I believe these trees were very popular when 
it really WAS thought that intellectual change was a linear 
progression to better and better and better. 
 
2.   There are horizontal as well as vertical transformations -- 
generational, cohorts -- coauthors and THEIR advisors?  colleagues 
at your university?  today, I'd add spouses (I know I've been 
influenced by my own spouse's educational family tree).   
 
And, in my field of economic history, I know of advisors with 
a long life span who themselves changed rather dematically 
sorry, dramatically) in the course of their careers.  A graduate 
student who had Doug North at the beginning of the career had 
in some ways a very different advisor from the Doug North today. 
 
A total family tree -- whew.  too many lines crisscrossing.  More 
like a family bramblebush. 
 
-- Mary Schweitzer, Dept. of History, Villanova University 
(on leave 1995-96) 
[log in to unmask]