----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- I sympathize with Perry's comment about using fewer authors as the focus for upper division HET courses. Ideally, lower level HET would be two courses, organized chronologically. My upper level ('Advanced') HET courses have used the works of two authors as points of departure for studying other seminal articles and contributions. As I mentioned, in one course I use The Essential Adam Smith (which familiarizes students not only with WON, but TMS, History of Astronomy, and the Lectures, as well) and The General Theory (along with the 1937 article "The General Theory of Employment" and a few other pieces). Other readings are introduced topically rather than chronologically. So we read Allyn Young's "Increasing Returns and Economic Progress," Sraffa's 1925 and 1926 articles, and other related material when we are reading Smith's chs. on acccumulation and technical change, e.g. We read plenty of 20th c. stuff--from Joan Robinson to Brian Arthur. I have another similar course organized around Marx and Hayek instead of Smith and Keynes. (at UMKC, students get plenty of Veblen, Commons, etc. in their required courses on Institutional Economics). I may revise these further, though, because students here also get plenty of Keynes in their macro courses, e.g. Then there are other questions--methodology as part of the HET courses, or separate is a big one. I would prefer a separate course, but if that's not possible, then what? Ditto Economic History. Also, the relation between HET and alternative paradigms. At Gettysburg, the course was already called "Advanced History of Thought and Competing Paradigms in Economics" (I changed "Competing" to "Alternative"). Mat Forstater ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]