ABSTRACT
Yukihiro Ikeda, working with the Menger Papers now deposited at Duke University, and building on the work of Kiichiro Yagi, offers us a rare glimpse into the development of Menger’s world o f ideas. Looking at how these ideas were formed is important in understanding not only from whom Menger borrowed and where he felt that he was himself making important contributions. The formative period can also give us clues about further developments in the history of economic ideas that owed impulses to Menger’s work and the way it was presented, yet by themselves and in their end results could not be determined by him. In particular, the turns taken in the Methodenstreit and the way this academic Krdftemessen has set the tone and influenced the substance of economic discourse appear in a very different light indeed when we note one of Yukihiro Ikeda’s main results which shows the substantial common ground shared by Menger on the one hand and the Historical School on the other. This result is in line with other recent work on this subject, e.g. work published by Max Alter, and the author is right in insisting that the relationship between the Austrians and the Historical School needs to be looked at again.
