Overview

In How Economics Became a Mathematical Science E. Roy Weintraub traces the history of economics through the prism of the history of mathematics in the twentieth century. As mathematics has evolved, so has the image of mathematics, explains Weintraub, such as ideas about the standards for accepting proof, the meaning of rigor, and the nature of the mathematical enterprise itself. He also shows how economics itself has been shaped by economists' changing images of mathematics. Whereas others (most recently Philip Mirowski) have viewed economics in the context of physics, Weintraub presents a different picture, one in which changes in mathematics-both within the body of knowledge that constitutes mathematics and in how mathematics is thought of as a discipline and as a type of knowledge-have been intertwined with the evolution of economic thought. Weintraub begins his account with Cambridge University, the intellectual birthplace of modern economics, and examines specifically Alfred Marshall and the Mathematical Tripos examinations - tests in mathematics that were required of all who wished to study economics at Cambridge. He then interrogates the idea of a rigorous mathematical economics through the connection of the American economist Griffith Conrad Evans with the Italian mathematician Vito Volterra and moves on to the role of David Hilbert and how the mathematical issues of formalism and axiomatization played out in economics. Finally, the social and intellectual history becomes a personal history that reconstructs the career of the economist Sidney Weintraub, whose relationship to mathematics is viewed through his relationships with his mathematician brother, Hal, and his mathematician-economist son, the book's author. A major study of the mathematization of economics, this work will interest economists, mathematicians, philosophers and historians of science, sociologists of science, and science studies scholars.

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9780822328568

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I was not prepared to enjoy this book. I knew Weintraub to be a lively writer, but his topic was daunting. I was half expecting a forthrightly pedantic and in the end ploddingly dull monograph that followed the usual formulaic listing of 'seminal contributions' on the road to full mathematization. . . . To my great good fortune, Roy Weintraub's How Economics Became a Mathematical Science is neither pedantic or dull. It is, in fact, an altogether extraordinary book. . . . This, then, is an enjoyable book to read. But it is also an important one. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that How Economics Became a Mathematical Science itself promises to change the way that people view the relationship between mathematics and economics. . . . How Economics Became a Mathematical Science is a gem, the work of a mature historian of thought at the peak of his powers. It is also a book that virtually any economist will enjoy. Whether you call it a late holiday present or anticipated beach reading, treat yourself to this book. <br>--Bruce Caldwell, Southern Economic Journal

&amp;ldquo;The mathematization of economics is probably the most important development in the history of twentieth-century economics. This book provides fascinating accounts of important episodes in this process and should interest anyone who wants to understand how and why it took place.&amp;rdquo;&amp;mdash;Roger Backhouse, University of Birmingham

Author Information

E. Roy Weintraub is Professor of Economics at Duke University. He is the editor of Toward a History of Game Theory, also published by Duke University Press, and the author of numerous books, including Stabilizing Dynamics: Constructing Economic Knowledge.

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