Reading Popular Histories of Economics

Discussions of historiography often exclude books published for a mass public. As a result, we have developed a skewed appreciation of who writes the history of economics, how it is written and who reads it. In this essay I argue that learned and popular histories should be read as equals and that we ought to study both as objects in culture, forever mobile and tampered. My argument's deep implication is that our outlook and imagination have been unjustifiably constrained. By studying online reviews of histories of political economy I contend that histories have the potential to entertain, to elicit powerful emotions and to aid readers in the labours of understanding their social world