Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/58797 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 6213
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
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.
Subjects: 
economic history
economic growth
economic policy
JEL: 
B10
B30
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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