I commend Ross for his excellent initiative. I would only add that if I were him I would put a prohibition on writing about the most famous, such as Keynes and Marshal, so that the whole class would be pushed to study less well known but often superb economists. The only problem with this idea is how large to make the list of prohibited economists—contemplation of which suggests to me that maybe my prohibitions list is not such a good idea after all. But I worry that otherwise most will take only the most guys.
Richard
From: Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Ross Emmett
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2019 10:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Biographies of Economists
I certainly agree with Giancarlo that my project would be "bizarre," were one to try to catalogue everything that was biographical and autobiographical in the history of economics, But my request is somewhat different. Note I didn't ask for autobiography, although a lot of people have posted only autobiographies (and some don't appear to recognize the difference!). I specifically asked for book-length biographies, and not just chapters, biographical notes, obituaries, etc.
There is another selection criterion that I did not mention in the original post. I am requiring my students in the new history of economic thought course I'm teaching next semester to read an economist's biography and write a paper about their life and work. One of the reasons I wanted a diverse list is because I wanted to get students away from simply writing about "Smith, Marx, Keynes." I also have a diverse class, with people who may speak/read French or Spanish better than English, so I have appreciated the multi-lingual nature of the contributions made. And contributors have provided more entries on women economists that I knew about, so there are options there as well. The students will have to select from the list I'm creating.
One of the interesting things from the contributions is that there seems to be a biography "spree" going on over the last 10 years: almost 2/3rds of the entries are from that period. Perhaps that speaks well for us historians of economics, perhaps it doesn't! (Depends on your view of biography as history.)
By the way, right now the list is 5 pages long with 120 entries.
Ross
From: Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Giancarlo de Vivo <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2019 7:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Biographies of Economists
I find the initial project bizarre: as Alain Alcouffe has just remarked, for each of the stars (who are tens if not hundreds) there are tens (in some cases perhaps hundreds: think of Marx ) think of JS Mill, Turgot, and all the others. Then for literally hundreds of minors there are one or two each: for instance almost all the Physiocrats have at least one (not to mention AUTO biographies), and people like James Mill McCulloch Bagehot Wicksteed and so on. The whole amounts to an unmanageable amount and would frankly be meaningless I dare say. Sorry for being frank.
Giancarlo de Vivo
Inviato da iPhone
> Il giorno 21 ott 2019, alle ore 14:12, Alain Alcouffe <[log in to unmask]> ha scritto:
>
> Hello
>
> There are so many biographies of economists that one is embarrassed either to mention those of celebrities (Smith/Keynes/Marx/Schumpeter) or to mention those of long forgotten economists.
>
> Let me mention a biography of a French historian of economic thought :
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> Marc Pénin Charles Gide 1847-1932 L'esprit critique L'Harmattan Paris 1997
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> Marc founded the Association Charles Gide pour l'étude de la pensée économique (the French society for the history of economics)
>
> I mention Gide's biography for it own sake but also because it was published as a part of a project of collected works. Such projects usually include one or several biographical notices that are "book length" (I think to Walras, or JB Say in this context).
>
> best
>
> AA
>