Looking for a Grad level History of Economic Thought Textbook

[Perfectlyaverag]

Not sure if this is the right place, but I'm currently a first year at a mid level PhD that does not offer a class on the topic.

 

Im leaning towards a focus in macro theory, and curious about the topic of economic history, particularly macro models of the past 100 years.

 

Does anyone know of a good History of Economic Thought textbook/ series of papers to read in my free time that might lead to an interesting perspective?

[tm_member]

I'm not sure what a Grad Level History of Thought book would even look like.

 

Instead, those classes would actually read Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Hume, Marx, Menger, von Mises, Hayek, Keynes, and so on. You could begin with The Worldly Philosophers.

[zshfryoh1]

The closest thing to what you want is probably "A History of Macroeconomics from Keynes to Lucas and Beyond" by Michel De Vroey, though as was mentioned, any course would likely use various papers possibly in conjunction with this book.

 

I came across this book a couple years ago and want to get around to buying and reading it, but I don't have the time, so I can't tell you how good it is.

 

If you are also interested history of micro theory, there is a long out of print book from the early 80's on the history micro theory and mathematical economics by Harvey Gram and Vivian Walsh.

[da1qe]

I don't think there are books for graduate level. If you have some background in history of economic thought, I guess you may read papers that focus on specific topics, such as the capital controversy, Japan's lost decades, or the great recession. Duke has a very good journal call "History of Political Economy" (HOPE).

 

If you prefer to read books, I have a few titles that focus on general topics:

 

* The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner

 

* History of Economic Thought by E. K. Hunt

 

* Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, by Robert Z. Aliber

 

* A History of Post Keynesian Economics Since 1936, by J. E. King

 

* The Micro-foundations Delusion: Metaphor and Dogma in the History of Macroeconomics, by J. E. King

[kwkak37]

The thing about the discipline of history of economic thought is that all the recent history of economic thought would be, well, current and mainstream economic theory that you can get from any standard graduate economics textbook. I was once told by a professor (emeritius) that trying to learn history of economic thought would usually land you in the sociology department.

 

That being said, I would recommend the Blackwell Companion to the History of Economic Thought (Samuels, Biddle, Davis), which is the closest to a graduate-level treatment of history of economic thought as you can get.