Agnar Sandmo 20.04.07.

Notes on the English translation.

Coverage.

The book covers the history of economics from ancient to modern times. The treatment of economic thinking before Adam Smith is cursory, and detailed exposition of economic theories and ideas begins with Smith. The coverage of the modern literature ends around 1970, although there is a final chapter that is concerned with trends in modern economics.

Style and ambitions.

The aim of this book is to present a history of economic ideas that is accessible to persons with some but not very extensive training in economics. In fact, most of the book will be accessible to people who have no formal training at all but who take an interest in economic ideas. Students of economics will on the other hand be able to relate the exposition in the book to the more formal theories that they are exposed to in courses on economic theory. Technicalities are avoided as much as possible; the limited amount of mathematics is in footnotes, and there are only a few diagrams.

The nature of the translation.

My plan is to do the translation myself. For most of the chapters this will involve a direct translation of the Norwegian text, with the exception of Chapter 16, which is about economics in Norway. I intend to rewrite this chapter as a history of modern quantitative approaches. Econometrics is already in that chapter, but I plan to include also some material about national accounting, input-output analysis, macroeconomic planning and related topics. The challenge is to make this exposition readable, but I believe that it can be done.

Sample translation.

The sample translation is of Chapter 14, “The great systems debate.” I chose this chapter because it is a little different from the material usually covered in histories of economic thought, but also because I believe that it is representative of the style of the book.