ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the 80s, I started a research project into the genealogy of the idea of planning. Just as I had done in Retracking, I defi ned planning as the recursive linking of knowledge with action or, more simply, as science-based advice in the making of public policies, rather than as any specifi c application of practical reasoning, such as in city planning (Chapter 1). I traced the history of this idea back to the late 18th and early 19th century, showing how the modern idea of planning was an outgrowth of the Enlightenment, and how this idea evolved over the next two centuries across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines in both Western Europe and North America.
