The Wealth of Ideas: A History of Economic Thought

by Alessandro Roncaglia

The Wealth of Ideas, first published in 2005, traces the history of economic thought, from its prehistory (the Bible, Classical antiquity) to the present day. In this eloquently written, scientifically rigorous and well documented book, chapters on William Petty, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, Léon Walras, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter and Piero Sraffa alternate with chapters on other important figures and on debates of the period. Economic thought is seen as developing between two opposite a subjective one, based on the ideas of scarcity and utility, and an objective one based on the notions of physical costs and surplus. Professor Roncaglia focuses on the different views of the economy and society and on their evolution over time and critically evaluates the foundations of the scarcity-utility approach in comparison with the Classical/Keynesian approach.

Genres: Economics, History, Philosophy, Nonfiction

596 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 2005

About the author

Professor of Economics in the Department of Economic Sciences, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’.

Reviews

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Wealth of Ideas: A History of Economic Thought de Alessandro Roncaglia es un extraordinario trabajo de investigación sobre la historia de la economía. Desde sus raíces en algunos aspectos de la filosofía clásica (Aristoteles, Platon) pasando por su formación dentro de la filosofía moral, hasta transformarse en una rama por si misma primero naciendo como economía política en los años previos y posteriores a la ilustración y posteriormente su consolidación como "Economía" con el surgimiento de la revolución marginalista y la profesización de la economía en los siglos XIX y XX.

Roncalgia recuenta los debates más importantes en los distintos tiempos en el desarrollo del pensamiento económico,los debates sobre la teoría del valor ( Objetiva y Subjetiva) en el centro de la teoría economía, la formación y distintas interpretaciones respecto a estos debates por parte de las distintas escuelas de pensamiento.

El libro permite redescubrir el trabajo de grandes economistas un tanto olvidados por el mainstream teórico, desde clásicos como Ricardo y Stuart Mill hasta el trabajo original de Walras, jevons y Menger y Marshall, más próximos a nuestros tiempos los de Sraffa, Passineti, Robinson,Kandor, entre muchos otros.

De forma adicional Roncaglia ofrece una critica a los distintos problemas a los que se ha enfrentado la teoría económica en su formación y hasta nuestros días y como la creciente fragmentación de las áreas de investigación dentro del campo ofrecen múltiples oportunidades para el enriquecimiento de la investigación económica.

[Victor Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of some of the influential schools of economics. Usually generalist histories of this kind have some loose ends and weaknesses, however, Roncaglia shows a strong grasp of most of the material which makes this near 600 page book a very efficient way of becoming acquainted with many important thinkers. Being a Sraffa scholar, his sections on the classics of political economy (Petty, Smith, Ricardo) truly reveal a mastery of the ideas of this tradition, a good grasp of important Marxian contributions (as well as Marx's limitations) and, of course, one of the best short introductions to Sraffa's thought (which brings nuance to arguments like Ian Steedman's that Sraffa causes the whole of Marx's intellectual edifice to crumble). Would recommend.

[Miri Villerius]

Certainly an interesting book to read on my journey of trying to understand the hydra of a field that is economics. A lot of the book was full of rather boring descriptions of the history of abstract economic theories, but I think it gave me a greater sense of the totality of economic thought even though I was lost on a lot of the reasoning for particular theories.

[Bryan Cobo · Rating 3 out of 5]

En general no es mal libro. Roncaglia explica bien, pero me ha tocado las narices ver qué obvia por completo a la escuela de Salamanca porque una de las razones por las que me leí el libro era, precisamente, ver qué me podía decir de ella. Además, la obvia conscientemente, porque a muchos de los autores que cita y que parece conocer bien han escrito sobre ella.

[Alex Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fairly good read, the author investigates specifically how each thinker approached problems...and investigated competing theories of value.

[Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessante e utile per chi si appresta a iniziare lo studio della storia economica dal punto di vista del pensiero. Letto per l'università, si è rivelata una lunga ma bella lettura!

[Orlando Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

El mejor libro de historia del pensamiento económico. El autor es bastante erudito sobre filosofía y teoría social, además de un conocimiento amplio de la teoría económica de las diversas épocas.
Lectura indispensable para todo científico social.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as set literature for a course in history of economics. The book is a comprehensive review of the past centuries' thinkers. A good introduction to the subject.

[IaraC2 · Rating 2 out of 5]

me dormi

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read Chapters 6-8, 10 -13, and an extra one on Keynes. Was going to work through the rest but reading about Economic Thought is dead boring as all hell.

[Quang-Thanh Tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I felt overwhelmed with the amount of information that the book provided.
It was a good book but hard to follow and some text required more than one reading.
I used it as a great and informative source of reference, along with a text book that we used at school, which was written in a very brief sense and only focused on the most famous economic thinkers like Adam Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, Friedman,...

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you know that the economics underpinning the last 40 years of globalisation is the equivalent to the Monorail guy from The Simpsons and would also like to delve deeper into how rich the history of economic thought is to the contrary, then this book is for you.