Volume 2, Number 10 · June 25, 1964
Mysteries of Economic Growth
By E.J. Hobsbawm
Economic Growth in France and Britain 1851-1950
by Charles P. Kindleberger
Harvard, 378 pp., $8.95
The social sciences are always in danger of forgetting the unwelcome fact that they are very much less mature than they think, partly because their subject-matter is extremely difficult, partly because they cannot escape the ideologies, and partly because they are overrun with amateurs claiming to be professionals: politicians, businessmen, journalists, administrators, and the rest. Few presidents would claim to make technical suggestions about the construction of nuclear power-stations; but any fool who can read the financial pages has opinions about the economy and sometimes publishes them in print. The social sciences are therefore littered with theoretical rubbish which ought long ago to have been carted away. This state of affairs justifies books like Professor Kindleberger's.
Review, 1830 words
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