Introduction

The prospect of putting together an edited volume on the history of Scottish economic thought was both exciting and daunting: exciting because there is such a wealth of scholarship on many of the key Scottish figures in the early development of what was to become modern economics; but daunting for the same reason. It was decided early on, therefore, that it was an impossible task to provide a comprehensive coverage of thinking, past and present, on the full range of figures in the history of Scottish economic thought, appealing though that might be. Rather the approach we have taken is highly selective. But in the process we hope to have provided a flavour of a range of thinking on some of the central figures, their contexts and the implications of their work.