Dears,

Well, as Roy says, we are off to the races.  My 2-cents worth is to note 
that real creativity comes from real conversation.  (One can make the 
same point about economic creativity itself, and argue that it's the 
language-using of humans---not "information"---that makes for new ideas 
in talk.).  That's why I couldn't get much out of Randall Collins' 
astounding opus on philosophical schools.  It seemed like a massive 
diagram of "influence," a subway map of students, which is not I think 
such a grand idea in intellectual sociology, especially  for really 
creative conversations, as against epigones gathered at the foot of The 
Master.

Look at the Scottish Enlightenment.  Or Malthus-Ricardo correspondence.  
Or Cambridge (Eng.) in the 1930s.  Or Chicago in the 1970s.

Regards,

Deirdre McCloskey