SHE_FORUM: Fw: Inspiration to generations of economists

From: Peter Kriesler <P.Kriesler_at_unsw.edu.au>
Date: 18-01-05

This is a multipart message in MIME format.
--=_alternative 00227975CA256F8D_Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

FINANCIAL TIMES

Inspiration to generations of economists

Published: January 10 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January 10 2005 02:00

Robert Heilbroner, author of Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and
Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers and among the most influential
economic historians of the 20th century, has died in New York. He was 85.

Dr Heilbroner, who had suffered for the past three years with Lewy Body
disease, a rare Alzheimer's-like illness, died of a stroke last Wednesday,
according to his son, David.

A professor at the New School in New York for five decades and author of
more than 20 books, Dr Heilbroner remains best known for his first book,
Worldly Philosophers, an engrossing account of the lives and contributions
of economists from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to John Maynard Keynes.

Written as his doctoral thesis in 1953, Worldly Philosophers has sold
nearly 4m copies - the second best-selling economics text of all time
(after Paul Samuelson's Economics)-and remains required reading in the
economics departments of virtually every American college. The book is
also credited with inspiring the careers of generations of economists.

In his later years, Dr Heilbroner became a critic of the modern economics,
cautioning that the focus on mathematics and esoteric models to the
exclusion of any societal factors diverged from the great strides made by
his Worldly Philosophers. This failure of vision, he warned, threatened to
render the field irrelevant.

In 1996's The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought, co-authored
with Will Milberg, he noted that "the high theorising of the present
period [in economics] attains a degree of unreality that can be matched
only by medieval scholasticism"."

Bob Heilbroner was a man of very strong and sincere feelings about the
world," said Peter Bernstein, economic consultant and author of Against
the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. Mr Bernstein attended Harvard with
Dr Heilbroner and the two remained lifelong friends since boyhood.

Born in 1919 and raised in Manhattan, Dr Heilbroner attended Harvard in
the late 1930s, studying under Worldly Philosopher Joseph Schumpeter and
other luminaries at a time of great ferment and upheaval in economics
caused by the Great Depression as well as the revolutionary theories of
John Maynard Keynes. After graduating, Dr Heilbroner worked for a
commodities trading firm before leaving to serve as an intelligence
officer in the Pacific in the second world war.

After returning to the business world at the war's end, Dr Heilbroner
turned to writing and the study of economics, enrolling at the New School
in New York City under the mentorship of Adolph Lowe. It was during this
time that Worldly Philosophers was born.

"He was clear about how he wanted to describe, not only the lives and
ideas of each man, but the crucial linkages between them," Mr Bernstein
wrote in a tribute to his friend in the Summer 2004 edition of Social
Research. "The result was this extraordinary, and apparently immortal,
history of economic thought."

Dr Heilbroner's other prominent works include A Primer on Government
Spending, a influential treatise in favour of President John F. Kennedy's
income tax cuts co-authored with Mr Bernstein; and Economics Explained,
written with Lester Thurow.

Dr Heilbroner is survived by first wife, Joan, second wife, Shirley, and
his two sons, Peter and David.

Dr Heilbroner stopped writing three years ago but he remained a prolific,
passionate and controversial voice well into his late 70s.

The seventh edition of Worldly Philosophers, published in 1999, included a
new final chapter entitled "The End of Worldly Philosophy", which included
both a grim view on the current state of economics as well as a hopeful
vision for a "reborn worldly philosophy" that incorporated social aspects
of capitalism."Economics will not, and should not, become a political
torch that lights our way into the future," he wrote in the new coda, "but
it can and should become the source of an awareness of ways by which a
capitalist structure can broaden its motivations, increase its flexibility
and develop its social morale."

Steve Schurr

--=_alternative 00227975CA256F8D_Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

FINANCIAL TIMES
 
 
 Inspiration to generations of economists
 
 Published: January 10 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January
10 2005 02:00
 
<table width=100%>
<tr valign=top>
<td width=100%>Robert Heilbroner, author of Worldly Philosophers:
The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers and among
the most influential economic historians of the 20th century, has died
in New York. He was 85.
 
 Dr Heilbroner, who had suffered for the past three years
with Lewy Body disease, a rare Alzheimer's-like illness, died of a stroke
last Wednesday, according to his son, David.
 
 A professor at the New School in New York for five decades
and author of more than 20 books, Dr Heilbroner remains best known for
his first book, Worldly Philosophers, an engrossing account of the
lives and contributions of economists from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to
John Maynard Keynes.
 
 Written as his doctoral thesis in 1953, Worldly Philosophers
has sold nearly 4m copies - the second best-selling economics text of all
time (after Paul Samuelson's Economics)-and remains required reading
in the economics departments of virtually every American college. The book
is also credited with inspiring the careers of generations of economists.
 
 In his later years, Dr Heilbroner became a critic of the
modern economics, cautioning that the focus on mathematics and esoteric
models to the exclusion of any societal factors diverged from the great
strides made by his Worldly Philosophers. This failure of vision,
he warned, threatened to render the field irrelevant.
 
 In 1996's The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought,
co-authored with Will Milberg, he noted that "the high theorising
of the present period [in economics] attains a degree of unreality that
can be matched only by medieval scholasticism"."
 
 Bob Heilbroner was a man of very strong and sincere feelings
about the world," said Peter Bernstein, economic consultant and author
of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. Mr Bernstein
attended Harvard with Dr Heilbroner and the two remained lifelong friends
since boyhood.
 
 Born in 1919 and raised in Manhattan, Dr Heilbroner attended
Harvard in the late 1930s, studying under Worldly Philosopher Joseph Schumpeter
and other luminaries at a time of great ferment and upheaval in economics
caused by the Great Depression as well as the revolutionary theories of
John Maynard Keynes. After graduating, Dr Heilbroner worked for a commodities
trading firm before leaving to serve as an intelligence officer in the
Pacific in the second world war.
 
 After returning to the business world at the war's end,
Dr Heilbroner turned to writing and the study of economics, enrolling at
the New School in New York City under the mentorship of Adolph Lowe. It
was during this time that Worldly Philosophers was born.
 
 "He was clear about how he wanted to describe, not
only the lives and ideas of each man, but the crucial linkages between
them," Mr Bernstein wrote in a tribute to his friend in the Summer
2004 edition of Social Research. "The result was this extraordinary,
and apparently immortal, history of economic thought."
 
 Dr Heilbroner's other prominent works include A Primer
on Government Spending, a influential treatise in favour of President
John F. Kennedy's income tax cuts co-authored with Mr Bernstein; and Economics
Explained, written with Lester Thurow.
 
 Dr Heilbroner is survived by first wife, Joan, second
wife, Shirley, and his two sons, Peter and David.
 
 Dr Heilbroner stopped writing three years ago but he remained
a prolific, passionate and controversial voice well into his late 70s.
 
 The seventh edition of Worldly Philosophers, published
in 1999, included a new final chapter entitled "The End of Worldly
Philosophy", which included both a grim view on the current state
of economics as well as a hopeful vision for a "reborn worldly philosophy"
that incorporated social aspects of capitalism."Economics will not,
and should not, become a political torch that lights our way into the future,"
he wrote in the new coda, "but it can and should become the source
of an awareness of ways by which a capitalist structure can broaden its
motivations, increase its flexibility and develop its social morale."
 
 Steve Schurr
<tr valign=top>
<td></table>
 
 
 
--=_alternative 00227975CA256F8D_=--
Received on Tue Jan 18 07:16:33 2005