Alan Peacock poses the question of whether the history of economic thought is an essential part of the training of scholars concerned with the study of public finance. He contends that the perspective gained by studying the origins of public choice analysis can offer an important stimulus to scientific progress. His first lecture, The demand for historical perspective, traces the decrease in demand for historical perspective. His second lecture, Public choice and the analysis of public sector growth, criticizes those theories of growth in government expenditure that ignore the political...