===================== HES POSTING ===================== Given the recent discussion on the historiography of economics, I thought I would recommend the only, as far as I know, book that deals with the subject in a systematic way. The book is Werner Stark's "History and Historians of Political Economy" and it was published by Transactions in 1994. Stark wrote this book in 1939-41 and only published the last chapter, in 1943 or 1944 under the title "The history of economics in relation to social development". Although Stigler and others attacked the book, I think that the general consensus of the extreme usefulness of whig- history today indicates that Stark was way ahead of his time. Stark gives a history of the history of economics up until the 1930s, finding three essential types of historiography, one that looks at the history of economics as the progressive march to established and accepted Truths (whig type history), the historical approach, which attempts to accurately understand the theorists' ideas, and the explanatory approach, which goes beyond mere context, and tries to connect economic doctrines to economic, social and historical context. It is worth reading not only for its intro the historiography of economics, but also to show us what HOE was like before Schumpeter. Charles Clark ================ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ================ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]