Economics in Perspective: A Critical History

In his 27th book, Harvard economist Galbraith (The Affluent Society, The Anatomy of Power) chronicles the thought and literature of economics from Aristotle's interest-free lending ethic up to and beyond the 1936 deficit-financing manifesto of John Maynard Keynes. Galbraith compares the latter, in ""revolutionary'' importance to Karl Marx (Das Capital, 1867) and Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776). In the author's ``parade of personalities,'' some are seen as sonorous, others tragi-comic, as slavery and cottage industries recede before mercantile power in Venice and Amsterdam; colonization with its gold and silver to finance bigger European wars; and the still-baffling corporate and governmental complexities of the industrial revolution. No agreement on economic principles, if any, ever has existed, Galbraith shows, although ``the great truisms of economics . . . . are evident for all to see.'' (October 7)