ABSTRACT
Mark Blaug's best-selling and most cited work on the history of economic thought is Economic Theary in Retrospect, now in its fifth edition. Its opening pages contain a denunciation of relativ ist approaches to writing history that will be familiar to generations of students. lt is tempting to suggest that Blaug should be judged according to his own standards and that the correct strategy in appraising his work is to ask whether his interpretations of history turned out to be right or wrong. In shon, he should be judged by the standards of modem scholarship on the subject. There are, however, at least three reasons for not following such an approach. The first is that if we turn to Blaug's other work, however, we find examples of history that is much more sensitive to historical context than his denunciation of relativism might lead one to expect. Even the first chapter of Economic Theary in Retrospect is not completely clear cut: H. D. Dickinson, in reviewing the first British edition 1 jusrIy observed that: "Here the author shows a certain division within hirnself between head and hean. Intellectually, he is an absolutist; but in many passages his words suggest that, emotionally, he has a strong sympathy with the relativ ist position" (Dickinson 1965: 170).
