INTRODUCTION

This volume contains seventeen papers presented at the 1996 History of Economics Society meetings in Vancouver. All the papers included deal in whole or in part with the history of American economic thought. That so many papers dealing with American subjects were presented at the conference was not an accident. At the History of Economics Society meetings in 1994 Mary Morgan and I started an informal network of historians of economics interested in the history of American economics. We felt this was an area of the history of economics that had received insufficient attention, and which, as a result, contained numerous opportunities for new and interesting research. Moreover, the standard presentation of American economics as derivative and of poor quality was, we thought, misleading. We were concerned that the variety and creativity of American economics, and the links between American economic thought and its particular, non-European, context, should become better appreciated. One of our objectives was to encourage papers on American themes to be given at the Vancouver conference. This volume is the result. The title, The Economic Mind in America, is an acknowledgement of the pioneering work of Joseph Dorfman in this area.