For this important new volume, Donald N. McCloskey has assembled twenty-four essays by leading economic historians who argue that commonly accepted perceptions of our economic past can be wrong and, therefore, misleading. The essays reevaluate various issues and events that influence today's economic thinking, thus examining the past as a way of preparing for the future. Such notable contributors as Robert Higgs, Julian and Rita Simon, Elyce Rotella, Terry Anderson, Barry Eichengreen, Price Fishback, Susan Phillips, and J. Richard Zecher address a wide range of issues, including the Teapot...

In this witty, accessible, and revealing book, Deirdre McCloskey demystifies economic theory and practice to show that behind the economists claim to certainty is the ancient art of storytelling. If You're So Smart will engage, enlighten, and empower anyone trying to evaluate the experts who stand ready to engineer our lives.
-Writing with delicious wit and great seriousness.---Publishers Weekly. -
-McCloskey is more interesting on an uninspired day than most of her peers can manage at their very best.---Peter Passell, New York Times

In this witty, accessible, and revealing book, Deirdre McCloskey demystifies economic theory and practice to show that behind the economists claim to certainty is the ancient art of storytelling. "If You're So Smart" will engage, enlighten, and empower anyone trying to evaluate the experts who stand ready to engineer our lives.
"Writing with delicious wit and great seriousness." "Publishers Weekly." "
"McCloskey is more interesting on an uninspired day than most of her peers can manage at their very best." Peter Passell, "New ""York Times""

These unique papers were originally read at a conference on the new economic history of Britain at Harvard in 1970, and each is accompanied by a summary of the discussion that followed it. The participants of the conference represented a broad range of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic.
The first eleven papers deal with a variety of topics covering a period from 1840 to the 1920s. They focus on the performance of the British economy, and especially its businessmen, during the time of Britain's industrial maturity and relative decline. The papers and discussions reached a novel...

These essays provide a thorough introduction to economics for historians. The authors, all eminent scholars, show how to use economic thinking, economic models, and economic methods to enrich historical research. They examine such vital issues as long-term trends, institutions, labor--including an engaging dialogue between a labor historian and a labor economist--international affairs, and money and banking. Scholars and teachers of history will welcome this volume as an introduction and guide to economics, a springboard for their own research, and a lively and provocative source of...

The field of economics proves to be a matter of metaphor and storytelling--its mathematics is metaphoric and its policymaking is narrative. Economists have begun to realize this and to rethink how they speak. This volume is the result of a conference held at Wellesley College, involving both theoretical and applied economists, that explored the consequences of the rhetoric and the conversation of the field of economics.

Donald McCloskey's previous books, The Rhetoric of Economics and If You're So Smart, aimed to bring economics back into the wider conversation of the day. In Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics he carries the conversation further, into the seminars of philosophers. His message is that economics is a science, but a human science. It is properly mathematical, but literary too. His book is highly unusual: a work of technical economics that can be read by anyone, a witty guide to the ins and outs of economic philosophy expressed in plain English.

Historians and economists will find here what their fields have in common--the movement since the 1950s known variously as "cliometrics," "economic history," or "historical economics." A leading figure in the movement, Donald McCloskey, has compiled, with the help of George Hersh and a panel of distinguished advisors, the only bibliography of historical economics. The many thousands of items cover all countries for all periods in which historical economics has been written. It will be useful to all economic historians, as well as quantitative historians, applied economists, historical...