----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
 
Schumpeter, Joseph A, History of Economic Analysis. London:  
George Allen and Unwin, 1954.   
 
I don't know whether anyone has ever sat down and read the History of  
Economic Analysis from start to finish, but as a companion and  
reference book it is surely without equal. When I am faced with an  
unfamiliar author, topic, or period, Schumpeter is the first thing I turn  
to. His judgements may be challenged but they always have to be taken  
seriously. Nothing else comes close to it in its combination of breadth,  
depth and insight.   
 
Precisely because of the encyclopedic character of his work, it is quite  
impossible to enumerate the different aspects of the history of  
economics that Schumpeter reshaped. I will give one example that I  
know well. His identification of the sequence Petty-Cantillon-Quesnay  
has been fundamental to work on the seventeenth and eighteenth  
century. His claim that Cantillon is the direct ancestor of the Tableau  
Economique is an insight which is still not fully recognized. One could  
produce similar examples from every period and aspect of the history  
of economics.   
 
Tony Brewer, University of Bristol 
 
------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]