One way to evaluate whether the history of economics has moved toward the history of science is to compare recent work in both fields. In order to narrow the comparison in two rapidly expanding publication areas, I decided to examine two corresponding sets of literature in each field: the...

A genealogical investigation of Frank Knight's little textbook, lt;Igt;The Economic Organizationlt;/Igt; (lt;Igt;EOlt;/Igt;), which has a history separate from, and perhaps even in tension with, its author. Where did this text come from? What is its history? What essays and manuscripts are its...

Weber's approach to social scientific methodology and his comparative historical sociology were important resources that Knight drew upon in his efforts to create a social science that transcended the terms of the neoclassical-institutionalist debate during the 1920s and 1930s. The paper...

James M. Buchanan revisited his mentor's famous 1923 essay “The Ethics of Competition” in an essay written for the centenary celebration of Frank Knight's birth in 1985. Buchanan's paper focused on the first section of Knight's essay, and outlined why it provided an inadequate criticism of a...

A review of Nancy MacLean's Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America that focuses on the implications of her historiographic method in reading Jim Buchanan's work, and the resulting failure to take seriously the underlying framework of constitutional...

The libertarian defense of free enterprise, free trade, and freedom from government regulations and controls is grounded in a normative commitment to individual freedom. The majority of the economics profession, including the Chicago School, are committed in the first instance to methodological...

T. Robert Malthus is usually remembered for the “gloomy presentiments” of the population principle articulated in the first edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population. Less attention is given to the subsequent editions of the Essay, in which Malthus refined the principle, and...

Frank Knight's early life, including his family history, brothers in economics, early education, education at American University (Harriman, TN) and Milligan College, experience at the Jamestown Exposition, graduate study at Tennessee and Cornell. Clarifies his religious background, educational...

This draft chapter for the Elgar International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics is intended to give advice to instructors who might be teaching a history of economic thought course to undergraduates for the first time or who have perhaps been teaching for a while but would like to...