History of Economic Thought

by Harry H. Landreth, David Colander

An upper-level text, History of Economic Thought continues to offer a lively, accessible discussion of ideas that have shaped modern economics. The Fourth Edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect recent scholarship and research, as well as a more pointed focus on modern economic thought. The text remains a highly understandable and opinionated--but fair--presentation of the history of economic thought.

Genres: Economics, History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Finance, Textbooks

544 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Elvin P. Aliyev · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand the evolution of economics as a science and see the economic thought of various times in the context of those times, this book is for you. I loved the author's approach to uncovering the economic thought of each school within the predicaments of a period in which each school dominated. For instance, why David Ricardo or John Stuart Mill was interested in particular areas of economics, what were the questions they tried to answer, and what was the context within which they arrived at those questions in the first place, are the questions that are extensively covered by the book. I would say the book could benefit from an update because it mentioned little about behavioral and experimental economics.

[Lucía Vijil Saybe · Rating 5 out of 5]

En otros espacio de tiempo me hubiera parecido muy tediosa una lectura de estas, afortunadamente ya no me aliena el sistema. Los clásicos sin duda mis favoritos, y Friedman el que más respeto de los modernistas microeconómicos. La renovación de las teorías ortodoxas, se dice genera los "neo-clásicos" y a los "neo-keynesianos" términos que no significan nada, no se observa más allá de una refutación de teoría, un aspecto a considerar por esos llamados "intelectuales". Aportes que me encantan claro, Marx. Identificándome por completo con la ideología marxista dialéctica. Se anunciaba, "los expropiadores, serán expropiados" espero entonces no ser distorsionada. Crítica de Knight al tan considerado Keynes "Keynes dijo algunas cosas que eran nuevas y algunas que eran ciertas; desgraciadamente, las que eran nuevas no eran ciertas y las que eran ciertas no eran nuevas". Si no se hace estudio previo de microeconomía y macroeconomía será muy difícil de entender este libro, pero muy teórica, descriptiva y analítica.

[karolᵕ̈]

Reading this for my economics class someone send help

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book that only traces roots of currently widely accepted views in economics discipline. Instead, authors have presented views of both orthodox thinkers and their critics. Authors believe that development of economic thought is "a dynamic process of interaction between forces external and internal to discipline" and therefore use economic and political issues of time and debates in discipline to explain economists' views.

Authors start with a very good introductory chapter that explains main focus of modern economics, different approaches to economics, and methodological issues. History of thought is divided to four eras: preclassical, classical, neoclassical, and modern economics, each treated in one part of the book.

This is a very accessible history, minimum background is required, maybe one or two textbooks. Recommended to anyone seeking a presentation other than mainstream economics.

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It would be sheer nonsense to try to meticulously explain the ideas – and their impact – of the last 250 years of economic thought in a 500 page book, even if you stick to the most famous economists. Any book attempting to do so is definitely aiming the wrong way. The very best you can do is give the reader a broad look at the most famous economists and economic schools’ ideas. This is precisely what this book does and, I must add, in a non partisan and sensible way.
It is designed for an introductory course in economic thought, and seems that the authors made a conscious effort to write it in an easy and straight forward way. However, it should also come in handy for more advanced interests since there are helpful references at the end of each chapter.

[Alejo López Ortiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como los mismos autores lo mencionan en el prólogo de la 4° edición: "las ideas económicas son importantes, pero la enseñanza de la economía moderna se pone con excesiva frecuencia más énfasis en las técnicas que en las ideas".

Y desde luego, esto último es lamentable y me ha estimulado a indagar un poco en esta parte del área del conocimiento del que orgullosamente hago parte.

Si bien no es el libro más largo que he leído, si es un libro algo denso y cuya lectura se debe hacer con detenimiento para poder entender muchas de las ideas y algunos simples modelos económicos que se muestran en el libro (aunque su esencia no es matemática).

[Gabriele Parotti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Economists have been trying to solve the same problems for the past 400 years, everyone tried and everyone failed. But in the processes many new tools, models and ideas came out, reinforcing the thoeretical bag of every researcher in the field.
In the reading process this is the pervasive sensation you get, everytime a new idea came out, it solved a problem and introduce a brand new one, so you move to the next chapter where some guy has a new approach to solve the issue and immediatly the hopes are killed by 3 new problems.
So this is pretty much the journey of economics. And this book displayed it in such a way that looking at your textbooks shelf you just want to see your micro and macro books catch fire knowing you just have learned respectively a 150 and a 80 years model probably just because they are easy to understand, but absolutely outdated.
So quite depressing, but if you want to achive some results you have to use the right recipee in the right moment and in the right circumstances, THE model doesn't exist, it is all about axioms, setting the perimeter of application of a model hoping that data support the thesis. Even the most advanced econometrical model failed to predict a event if the starting hypoteses are wrong or inadequate.
So at the end we see that economics has become a much much more formal and rigorous discipline in the way of formulating and testing stuff, which is great, but the main critiques remain. We are now simply more aware of them and less ambitious about the generality of the results we could achive.
I really believed initially that with the advent of econometrics everything would have been fixed but yeeeah, not quite. Damn, quite striking but there's no place for magic wands in economics.

[Tetsuya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book broadly reviews the history of economic thought in the past 250 years. Additionally, it partly includes pre-Smith era, stretching back to 2800 years ago such as Hesiod, Guan Zhong, Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, as well as the Mercantilism and other precursors of Classical economic thought(in Chapter 2 and 3). The main contents primarily focus on mainstream economic thoughts (i.e., classical, neoclassical, and modern economics; Chapter 4 to 16), but also mentions other heterodox economic thoughts which had often developed in mutual influence with the mainstream's (Chapter 7, 12, 13 and 17).
It helps me to understand how modern economics has been developed in a theory-oriented way with the use of highly abstract models and mathematics, and as a result, being isolated from the reality. At the same time, there have been other economic thoughts such as Austrian School and Institutional School which criticize the mainstream's ignorance of history and institutional factors.
This book originally targets the economics-major undergraduate students, therefore even those who have non-economic background, like me, will be able to easily read entire contents of the book. This well-constructed book is one of the best economics books I have ever read.

[aniah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Podręcznik w porządku, napisany łatwym i prostym językiem.
Pomógł zaliczyć przedmiot w terminie zerowym. Jednym zarzutem jest minimalne zarysowanie problematyki zagadnień w jednym z działów - może to wprowadzać czytelnika w błąd :)

[Robert K.T. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just go to wikipedia, you might want to look for the individual works mentioned in the book, other than that wikipedia should have better coverage.

[Orlando Santos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una historia casi lineal, narrada desde un punto de vista neoclásico que poco profundiza en la riqueza filosófica y política de las propuestas de los clásicos. Igual funciona como introducción.