The Penguin History of Economics

A very clear, reliable and readable history of economic thought from the ancient world to the present day. From Homer to Marx to John Stuart Mill, Backhouse shows how to keep your Keynsians from your post-Keynsians and New Keynsians. A core book.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 The ancient world: Homer and Hesiod; estate management - Xenophon's "Oikonomikos"; Plato's ideal state; Aristotle on justice and exchange; Aristotle and the acquisition of wealth; Rome; conclusions. Part 2 The Middle Ages: the decline of Rome; Judaism; early Christianity; Islam; from Charles Martel to the Black Death; the 12th-century Renaissance and economics in the universities; Nicole Oresme and the theory of money; conclusions. Part 3 The emergence of the modern world view - the 16th century: the Renaissance and the emergence of modern science; the Reformation; the rise of the European nation state; mercantilism; Machiavelli; the school of Salamanca and American treasure; England under the Tudors; economics in the 16th century. Part 4 Science, politics and trade in 17th-century England: background; science and the scientists of the Royal Society; political ferment; economic problems -Dutch commercial power and the crisis of the 1620s; the balance-of-trade doctrine; the rate of interest and the case for free trade; the recoinage crisis of the 1690s; economics in 17th-century England. Part 5 Absolutism and Enlightenment in 18th-century France: problems of the absolute state; early-18th-century critics of mercantilism; Cantillon on the nature of commerce in general; the Enlightenment; physiocracy; Turgot; economic thought under the "ancien regime". Part 6 The Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century: background; Hutcheson; Hume; Sir James Steuart; Adam Smith; division of labour and the market; capital accumulation; Smith and laissez-faire; economic thought at the end of the 18th century. Part 7 Classical political economy, 1790-1870: from moral philosophy to political economy; utilitarianism and the philosophical radicals; Ricardian economics; alternatives to Ricardian economics; government policy and the role of the state; money; John Stuart Mill; Karl Marx; conclusions. Part 8 The split between history and theory in Europe, 1870-1914: the professionalization of economics; Jevons, Walras and mathematical economics; economics in Germany and Austria; historical economics and the Marshallian School in Britain; European economic theory, 1900-1914. Part 9 The rise of American economics, 1870-1939: US economics in the late 19th century; John Bates Clark; mathematical economics; Thorstein Veblen; John R. Commons; inter-war pluralism; inter-war studies of competition; the migration of European academics; US economics in the mid-20th century. Part 10 Money and the business cycle, 1898-1939: Wicksell's cumulative process; the changed economic environment; Austrian and Swedish theories of the business cycle; Britain - from Marshall to Keynes; the American tradition; Keynes's "general theory"; the Keynsian revolution; the transition from inter-war to post-Second World War macroeconomics. Part 11 Econometrics and mathematical economics, 1930 to the present: the mathematization of economics. (Part Contents).