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In this discussion several people have referred to 
McCloskey's work, but as far as I know, no one has 
referred to what might, for this debate,  be the most 
significant chapter in The Rhetoric of Economics: the one 
on Fogel, which discusses the creation of a new 
conversation - quantitative economic history (or whatever 
you want to call it). McCloskey's point was that the 
creation of a new conversation required standards drawn 
from both history AND economics. 
 
Surely the lesson from this is that in HET we do not 
necessarily want to mimic either historians or economists, 
but we have to create our own standards, drawing on both 
history and economics. Thus I agree with Roy that we 
should learn from historians about standards by which to 
judge historical work. It does not follow, however, that we 
should necessarily be writing the same type of histories as other 
people or that the histories we will write will necessarily 
satisfy those working in other fields. 
 
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Roger E. Backhouse            [log in to unmask] 
Department of Economics 
University of Birmingham 
Edgbaston                     Phone:    0121 414 6655/+44 121 414 6655 
Birmingham  B15 2TT UK        Fax:      0121 414 7377/+44 121 414 7377 
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