history of economic thought guide

A Guide to History of Political Economy and History of Economics

On this page you find information on

finding primary sources
useful secondary literature
other tools of interest

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Primary sources

Many primary texts from the history of economic thought can be found on the internet. Either check Google Books (make sure to use a custom time range), the McMaster Archive for History of Economic Thought, the Internet Archive (change ‘All Media Types’ to ‘Texts’), the Online Library of Liberty, or the French Gallica Digital Library. Registered users can find almost any English text on Early English Books Online (1473-1700) or Eighteenth Century Collection Online (1701-1800).

There are also several collections, readings and texts books available:

Daire, Eugène, Économistes financiers du XVIIIe siècle (1843)
Vauban, Boisguilbert, Law, Melon, Dutot (all in French)
Daire, Eugène, Physiocrates (1843)
Quesnay, Dupont de Nemours, Mercier de la Rivière, Baudeau, Le Trosne (all in French)
Daire, Eugène & Gustave Molinari, Mélanges d’économie politique I (1847)
Hume, Forbonnais, Condillac, Condorcet, Franklin (all in French)
Daire, Eugène & Gustave Molinari, Mélanges d’économie politique II (1848)
Necker, Galiani, Montyon, Bentham (all in French)
McCulloch, J.R., A Select Collection of Early English Tracts on Commerce (1856)
Mun, Roberts, Fortrey, North (all in English)
McCulloch, A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Money (1856)
Vaughan, Cotton, Petty, Lowndes, Newton, Prior, Harris (all in English)
McCulloch, A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts and other Publications, on Paper Currency and Banking (1857)
Hume, Wallace, Thornton, Ricardo, Blake, Huskisson (all in English)
McCulloch, A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts and other Publications, on the National Debt and the Sinking Fund (1857)
Harley, Gould, Pulteney, Walpole, Hume, Price, Hamilton (all in English)
McCulloch, J.R., A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Economical Tracts (1859)
Defoe, Elking, Franklin, Turgot, Anderson, Schomberg, Townsend, Burke, Bell (all in English)
McCulloch, A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Commerce (1859)
Evelyn, Defoe, Richardson, Tucker, Temple (all in English)
Laistner, Max L.W., Greek Economics. Introduction & Translation (1923)
Solon, Lysias, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle (all in English)
Monroe, Arthur Eli, Early Economic Thought. Selected Writings from Aristotle to Hume (1924)
Aristotle, Xenophon, Aquinas, Oresme, Molinaeus, Bodin, Serra, Mun, Petty, Hornick, Cantillon, Galiani, Hume, Quesnay, Turgot, Justi (all in English)
Patterson, S. Howard, Readings in the History of Economic Thought (1932)
Mandeville, Hutcheson, Smith, Say, Franklin, Godwin, Malthus, Bentham, Ricardo, James Mill, Senior, John Stuart Mill, Cairness, Jevons, Böhm-Bawerk, List, Bastiat, Carey, Thompson, Ingram, Leslie, Bagehot, Toynbee, Sismondi, Ruskin, Fourier, Proudhon, Marx and Engels, George, Walker, Patten (all in English)
Meek, Ronald L., Precursors of Adam Smith (1973)
Cantillon, Hutcheson, Hume, Mirabeau, Quesnay, Steuart, Tucker (all in English)
Medema, Steven G. & Warren J. Samuels, The History of Economic Thought: A Reader (2003)
Aristotle, Aquinas, Petty, Mun, Locke, Cantillon, Quesnay, Turgot, Mandeville, Hume, Smith, Thornton, Bentham, Malthus, Godwin, Ricardo, Say, James Mill, Senior, John Stuart Mill, Marx, Jevons, Menger, Walras, Marshall, Böhm-Bawerk, Edgeworth, Wicksell, Fisher, Keynes, Veblen, Commons (all in English)
Clark, Henry C., Commerce, Culture and Liberty. Reading on Capitalism Before Adam Smith (2003)
Walwyn, De la Court, Child, Nicole, Barbon, North, Fletcher, Steele, Law, Trenchard, Mandeville, Blewhitt, Defoe, Saint-Pierre, Melon, Voltaire, Pluche, Montesquieu, Galiani, Fielding, Hume, Gournay, Rousseau, Hazeland, Coyer, Brown, Turgot, Saint-Lambert, Robertson, Du Pont de Nemours, Galiani, Raynal, Millar, Condillac (all in English)