ABSTRACT
I set out on this journey thinking that those who view conventional economics as a form of brain damage are out on a limb. Even the followers of ignored visionaries like Mahatma Gandhi and E. Fritz Schumacher seemed more well-meaning than effective. But within weeks of my hitting the road, in 2000, there was a student revolt in Paris that turned the story upside down. It alerted me about people and happenings that showed that the striving for ‘economics as if people mattered’ is throbbing with life. A foray into history became necessary, and exciting, because it explained the roots of contemporary academic firefights, slogan-shouting activism and quieter salvos from the frontiers of research in neurosciences.
