ABSTRACT
The history of economic ideas occupies an uncomfortable position in the academic spectrum, in the interstices between the vigorously-expanding and rapidly changing disciplines of economics and economic history, and its present condition exhibits both ambivalent and contradictory features. While its pedagogical importance has unquestionably declined in recent decades, there has been a concomitant growth of research and publication; and, before considering the needs of the future, it seems advisable to indicate the main reasons for this curiously mixed state of affairs.
