HOPE Surveys of Recent Scholarship in the History of Economics
When the first issue of HOPE appeared in 1969, historians of economics were not much
separated by their topics of specialization. In contrast, while today a Smith scholar will
often read articles on Malthus with some real attention to nuance, that same scholar
may be quite at a loss if asked to comment intelligently on a paper concerning Takama
Yasui’s role in reconstructing mathematical economics in Japan in the post World War
Two period. Similarly an historian of the modern reemergence of classical liberalism
may be quite unable to distinguish Turgot from Quesnay beyond vaguely recalling
material taught in a survey course in the history of economic thought. And just what
should an historian know about the links between neuroeconomics and experimental
economics?
Scholars in the history of economics community face some real barriers to entry to
historical topics distant from their own research activity. Although some general sources
can aid understanding they are frequently expensive and rarely to be found outside the
junior scholar’s institutional library.
Concerns over this “silo-ing” of research interests led the HOPE editors to consider ways
to overcome those communication barriers. The result is a new feature of HOPE, an
annual invited survey paper generally constructed to show all historians of economics
what is happening in a particular research sub-community.
After asking me to oversee this enterprise, the editors unanimously agreed that the first
such survey should be written on Adam Smith, and I invited Maria Pia Paganelli to
undertake this inaugural essay.
HOPE Associate Editor E. Roy Weintraub, Duke University