I've heard that the UofU has a decent economics department, and I guess this is evidence. I'm taking a course in the History of Economic Thought right now, and enjoying it very much. It is part of a 3-quarter series, and I think it's required for PhD, but I'm just picking up a minor in economics, taking graduate classes to complete the number of credits. I thought I was just going to do some economic methods, which have application in evolution and human behavior, but then I digressed. Something like I'm doing right now. The text for this quarter is E.K.Hunt 1992 _History of Economic Thought: a critical perspective_ HarperCollins The instructor is also E.K.Hunt, who is presently the department chair. He's really into the history of ideas and social theory generally. He was first ABD in philosophy, then switched to economics. The book covers classic political economy and a lot of other ground besides, from the origins of capitalism and the feudal-capital transition, through Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, rationalistic subjectivism, utilitarianism, Marx, Walras, neoclassicals, Veblen, Hobson, welfare economics, Keynes and more. What I like is that it's all from a leftish view and that it's not in the form of disembodied ideas. Everything is presented in context of the times and the political agenda involved. I'm glad I knew some Marx first, but now this is adding a lot of perspective on Marx, in terms of the context in which he was operating, the on-going debates in which he was participating, the critiques of the classics and his contemporaries that he was presenting, and the alternative analyses he offered. Still no economist, and never will be, but more informed than I was last month, Lisa p.s. I wrote summaries of 12 of the 19 chapters, and can email one or more to anyone who might find them useful.
