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Given the recent discussion on the historiography of economics, 
I thought I would recommend the only, as far as I know, book 
that deals with the subject in a systematic way.  The book is 
Werner Stark's "History and Historians of Political Economy" and 
it was published by Transactions in 1994.  Stark wrote this book in 
1939-41 and only published the last chapter, in 1943 or 1944 
under the title "The history of economics in relation to 
social development".  Although Stigler and others attacked the book, 
I think that the general consensus of the extreme usefulness of whig- 
history today indicates that Stark was way ahead of his time.  Stark 
gives a history of the history of economics up until the 1930s, finding 
three essential types of historiography, one that looks at the history 
of economics as the progressive march to established and accepted Truths 
(whig type history), the historical approach, which attempts to accurately 
understand the theorists' ideas, and the explanatory approach, which goes 
beyond mere context, and tries to connect economic doctrines to economic, 
social and historical context.  It is worth reading not only for its 
intro the historiography of economics, but also to show us what HOE 
was like before Schumpeter. 
 
Charles Clark 
 
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