There is room for "American" economoic theory in the sense that Americans altered European theories or even created ad hoc versions of their own in the process of having to create their own policies -- most people who work in economics, and American intellectual history for that matter, don't know what is common currency in early American political history, which is that the colonial legislatures were functioning as effectively independent polities through most of the 1700s. They made a number of decisions with regard to government regulation, monetary policy, and "encouraging" development (or not). And there were very real differences that emerged in Masschusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. But there were also some groups that were more formal -- like the Tuesday Club in Annapolis in the 1740s-1750s. But the other topoic -- interwar pluralism to postwar Marshall/samuelson? I like that one. Sounds very interesting. I am also personally intrigued by the way economics looks to ME, a semi-outsider (I have a lot of grad econ training, but my Ph.D> is actuallyin history) -- I like applied micro, which seems to be a jumble of mix-and-match options that can be rearranged to suit the specific situation under analysis. I am really perplexed, as an ecnomic historian, by the continuing attraction for a number of economists in my field for a one-size-fits-all type of theory. They brag that they don't even READ the applied literature. It is not at all uncommon in my field for economists to hang an entire interpretation of a situation one or two hundred years ago on the presumption that if there are a number of buyers and sellers, then there is competition in the labor market, and MPL must equal wages, and we must be at a pareto optimum. I've now seen it applied to child labor, making the argument that it's what everyone must have wanted so it must have been optimal. Insanity. But I think what I am seeing is an application of a very strong Houthakker level version of revealed preference. I need a way to tell historians that -- to tell them this is NOT the only way to do economic theory! (The last time I tried to say that on econhist, I got yelled at VERY MUCHLY by Don McCloskey ...) Different subject: Do you know anyone who might be interested in conversing with me (internet) about a discovery I made regarding the way this MPL=wages assumption is getting used in econ hist? I have an article from the JEH, a year ago, where the author succesively redefined terms and ignored assumptions in the literature to wander his way BACKWARDS from the economist of information through Marshall-Samuelson through Marx all the way back to Nassau Senior and the Factory Acts debate, I kid you not. By the end of the article he was using labor theory of value unabashedly -- BUT -- he never SAID that's what he was doing, and he was continuing to invoke the assumption MPL=wages! It's really quite a remarkable article -- and quite remarkable that it got buy so many economists. I also am picking up in the MPL=wages being invoked to defend certain policies as coming very very close to the econ theories early in this century that tied economicd growth to national character or religion or race. A lot of the economists who wrote about this weren't comfortable with the full Marshallean model, but they liked Clark's explanation of wages. Do you know anyone who would be interested in this? Finally (sorry this is long; got this far, might as well finish) -- I've been working on a manuscript describing the ad hoc economic theories historians use in their analysis, and trying to make connections between the sources of those theories, and assumptions that historians unwittingly drag into the analysis with these borrowed concepts. Do you know anyone who would be interested in THAT? I know this was a lot. I was really excited that this list began, because I have had no way to find people who do history of economic thought. So I hope I haven't dumped too much in your lap! :-) Mary Schweitzer