Economic Theory in Retrospect

This is a history of economic thought from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes - but it is a history with a difference.

Firstly, it is a history of economic theory, not of economic doctrines, that is, it is consistently focused on theoretical analysis, undiluted by entertaining historical digressions or biological colouring.

Secondly, it includes detailed Reader's Guides to nine of the major texts of economics, namely the works of Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marx, Marshall, Wickstead, Wicksell, Walras and Keynes, in the effort to encourage students to become acquainted at first hand with the writings of all the great economists.

This fifth edition adds new Reader's Guides to Walras' Elements of Pure Economics (1871¿74) and Keynes' General Theory to the previous seven Reader's Guides of other great books in economics. There are significant and major additions to six chapters.

- Important new edition of one of the classic texts in the history of economic thought;

- Contains important additions and changes bringing it right up to date with current research;

- Mark Blaug is perhaps the best known and most widely published historian of economic theory in the profession today;

- Highly acclaimed and well reviewed textbook;

- Includes reader's guides.

Contents

Introduction;
1. Pre-Adamite economics;
2. Adam Smith;
3. Population, diminishing returns and rent;
4. Ricardo's system;
5. Say's Law and classical monetary theory;
6. John Stuart Mill;
7. Marxian economics;
8. The marginal revolution;
9. Marshallian economics: utility and demand;
10. Marshallian economics: cost and supply;
11. Marginal productivity and factor prices;
12. The Austrian theory of capital and interest;
13. General equilibrium and welfare economics;
14. Spatial economics and the classical theory of location;
15. The neoclassical theory of money, interest and prices; 16. Macroeconomics;
17. A methodological postscript.

Reviews

'... this last edition of his magnum opus - witty, serious; iconoclastic, devout; in its core unchanged, full of new insights, is the best yet. I cannot imagine a scholar's library - or for that matter a student's - without it.'
Robert Heilbroner

'Economic Theory in Retrospect has, for over three decades, stood out among the essential secondary literature for its thoroughness and depth, scope and scholarship. It is most reassuring, therefore that Blaug's great work will be continuing in a new edition, as a mainstay of serious courses in the history of economics, well into the next century and next millennium.'
Terence Hutchison