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Economic History or History of Economics? A Review Essay on Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit: the Story of Economic Genius / Orley C. Ashenfelter.

NBER Working papers Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Ashenfelter, Orley C.
Contributor:
National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series:
Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w17607.
NBER working paper series no. w17607
Language:
English
Physical Description:
1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
Place of Publication:
Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.
Summary:
In this essay I review Sylvia Nasar's long awaited new history of economics, Grand Pursuit. I describe how the book is really 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.
Notes:
Print version record
November 2011.

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