The Pillars of Economic Understanding

the long version

In this New Interpretation of the historical development of economic thought, Mark Perlman and Charles R. McCann, Jr. illuminate the foundations of economic inquiry during the past three hundred years. Writing from the standpoint of the impact of cultural pluralism on economic thinking, their purpose is to show how modern economic thinking is shaped by a small number of cultural legacies that explain not only how economic questions are asked but also how they are formulated. The Pillars of Economic Understanding is thus distinguished by the attention that it gives to the philosophical ideas that are the cultural legacies upon which the structure of economics is built.