The title of this small book tells it all. Steven Kates offers a sustained defense of why the history of economics is an essential part of the professional training of economists. The author is a historian of economic thought from Australia who worked for many years as a lobbyist. (This turns out to be a not incidental fact, given the story he tells.) The book was prompted by his participation in an ultimately successful effort to keep the history of economic thought and economic history from being classified out of existence by agencies charged with drawing disciplinary boundaries in both Australia and Europe. Having seen firsthand the dangers, he wrote this book to sound the alarm. For purposes of full disclosure, I should note that I am not only a historian of economic thought, but I direct a center whose mission is to promote and support research in, and the teaching of, the history of economics. I tilt at the same windmills as does Kates.

The book has three main components. First, there is an extensive discussion of why studying the history of economics should be considered essential by economists. Next, Kates offers some ideas about how the history of economic thought might better be taught. Finally, he recounts the episodes that led him to write the book and offers advice as to how to avoid such episodes in the future.

Most people who defend the history of economics invoke its role in “liberal education”: knowing the history of one's discipline, being conversant with what Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Joseph Schumpeter really said, is part and parcel of being an educated human being. Kates takes a different tack, arguing that practicing economists need to know the history of their discipline to do their jobs well. This is of course a more difficult argument to make, but Kates manages to come up with an impressive number of examples of how this might be so. Thus he notes that most theory develops through contrasting one's own theory with those that came before (this is why most dissertations in economics have a “literature review” chapter). He argues that knowing something about the past trajectory of a theory provides orientation for its future development. He notes that past theories can be viewed as a storehouse of approaches to an area of investigation. The list is long, and though any particular argument might be picked at, taken together they make for a good case.

Historians of economics themselves differ as to how to respond to their home discipline's neglect or even hostility. Two possible paths are to join other communities (e.g., science studies, the history of science) or to produce a sort of Whig history that would be more congenial to current economic practitioners. Kates assesses these and other strategies by reproducing, and commenting upon, parts of a discussion that took place among historians of thought on the Societies for the History of Economics (SHOE) discussion list in 2009 about how best to practice their craft.

Kates's recommendation for teaching the history of economics is truly innovative: he suggests that teachers choose four textbooks from various points in the past (he lists eleven of them, with dates of publication ranging from 1825 to 1998) to see how they handled a particular topic (his examples are monopoly and the business cycle). This was a truly fascinating exercise, but it would seem to me to require a great deal of work to teach an entire class using this technique. It certainly could be used, however, as a writing assignment.

In the final chapter, Kates recounts the attempt by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)—the agency in charge of the Australian Standard Research Classification—to move history of economic thought and economic history from “Economics” into a new category, “History, Archeology, Religion, and Philosophy,” in 2007. Kates used his lobbying background to develop a plan of action, which was put into effect to reverse the decision of the ABS. He also joined the effort in 2011 to prevent the European Research Council from making a similar move. Given that research funding closely tracks fields, these two actions were doubtless crucial for the ongoing preservation of the fields of economic history and history of economic thought. Kates pithily lays out the key steps: “You must identify who is making the decision, find out and understand thoroughly the basis for the decision, explain in detail to those making the decision why that perspective may not be correct and then provide a better alternative” (p. 111). He offers a twelve-step program, at the end of the chapter, of strategies to use to avoid, or respond to, future assaults on the fields.

The book is short, but it could have been shorter: Kates has a tendency to repeat himself. It provides some ammunition for those who might want to defend the history of economics, and it could help someone who has no idea what the field is about to find out. Unfortunately, the percentage of economists for whom that might be true will probably only grow through time. Though the book is not necessarily aimed at economic historians, in the “classification wars” their necks were also on the executioner's block. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, dear reader.