How economics forgot history

by Geoffrey Martin Hodgson

"Economics today has been widely criticised as being more concerned with mathematical technique than the understanding and explanation of real world phenomena. However, one hundred years ago, in Europe and America, economics was fused with the study of history and its practitioners emphasised the importance of the understanding of specific institutions." "How Economics Forgot History shows how the German historical school addressed a key problem in social science and concerned themselves with the historical specific character of economic phenomena and the need to make economic theory more sensitive to the historical and geographical variety of different socio-economic systems. Examining the nature and evolution of the problem of historical specificity, it shows how this issue was tackled by Karl Marx, Gustav Schmoller, Carl Menger, Werner Sombart, Max Weber, Alfred Marshall, John Rogers Commons and Frank Knight. It is also argued that alongside Lionel Robbins, leading figures such as J