- Title
- Economic History or History of Economics? A Review Essay on Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit: the Story of Economic Genius
- Author(s)
- Orley Ashenfelter Orley Ashenfelter (Princeton University)
- Abstract
- In this essay I review Sylvia Nasar's long awaited new history of economics, Grand Pursuit. I describe how the book is an economic history of the period from 1850-1950, with distinguished economists' stories inserted in appropriate places. Nasar's goal is to show how economists work, but also to show that they are people too--with more than enough warts and foibles to show they are human! I contrast the general view of the role of economics in Grand Pursuit with Robert Heilbroner?s remarkably different conception in The Worldly Philosophers. I also discuss more generally the question of why economists might be interested in their history at all.
- Creation Date
- 2012-01
- Section URL ID
- IRS
- Paper Number
- 568
- URL
- https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01j9602063p/3/GrandPursuit%20Review--Nov-28th%202011--final.pdf
- File Function
- Jel
- B100, B200
- Keyword(s)
- economic history, book review, Nassar, Keynes
- Suppress
- false
- Series
- 1