Surfing the PastOnline Resources for Teaching the

History of Economic Thought

Ross B. Emmett

January 6. 2007

Student Search on “Schumpeter”

Wikipedia article on “Joseph Schumpeter”

Student Search on “Schumpeter and innovation”

EconLib bio of Schumpeter

Wikipedia article on “creative destruction”

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Student Search on “20th century innovation”

Ideafinder “20th Century Innovation Timeline”

Student Search on “20th century innovation theory”

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Found Davis & North “Institutional Change and American Economic Growth” (1970) but didn’t think it relevant

Found Mowery & Rosenberg Paths of Innovation: Technological Change in 20th Century America (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998): MSU has E-Book rights, so student started reading it online.

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Eh.Net search on “innovation”

Cliometrics Society member bio for Tom Nicholas

JEH Article: Why Schumpeter was Right

Student did not use MSU rights to article: gave up because he would have to pay for the article

“At this point I feel I have sufficient information to write a paper on the topic of 20th century innovation. I would begin the paper with the ideas discussed in Paths of Innovation and incorporate Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction theory into the paper near the midpoint. If I find I need to do additional searches to help clarify my work, I believe I would begin at either www.books.google.com or www.scholar.google.com”

What would you do to help this student improve his search and find

resources appropriate to a paper on Schumpeter’s views on

innovation in a capitalist society?

Answer 1: Go the Library!• Library catalog is online!

• Electronic resources of library are available anywhere

• Google Scholar will find articles, and your library permissions will give you access

• Google Book may give you access to the whole book

• Internet provides far easier access to the “general knowledge” about a topic than traditional library searches: Google & Yahoo.

Answer 2: Read Schumpeter!

• Hard to do online• McMaster HET Archive has one article by Schumpeter, not relevant to innovation theory

• http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/

• But many earlier economists are readily accessible online at McMaster site and here:

• EconLib: http://www.econlib.org/library/classics.html

• Marx: http://marx.org/

• História do pensamento econômico: http://www.pensamentoeconomico.ecn.br/

• Charles Gide Association: http://www.charlesgide.fr/

Answer 2b: Read MoreAbout Schumpeter

• New School University site has lists of sites with material about Schumpeter, and many more economists or schools of economic thought: http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/

• And then standard electronic resources of library

Answer 3: Broaden or Narrow Search

Have you taught students how to do searches?

A History of Economic Thought course is an excellent course in which to have library staff teach “information literacy” for economics students

Answer 4: Have Students Construct Website as Part of

Research Assignment

If you can’t stop them, put them to work for you!

Have them assemble a website/blog that deals with the person or topic in the history of economic thought that they are researching.

Use student presentations, or peer-review of websites as means of improving the resources they gather.

http://www.msu.edu/~emmettr/fhk/

Answer 5: Add context & images

• Library of Congress• Eh.Net• Global Price & Income

History Group• Duke’s Gallery of Economists• Roy Davies’ History of

Money site• Peart & Levy’s Secret History

of the Dismal Science• And more like them!

World Bank Celebration of Bretton Woods

Fleeming Jenkin’s image of the circularity of trade

A Few Other Sites You Should Know About

Adam Smith Lives!A History of Economic Thought Blog

The Economists’ Papers Project, Special Collections, Duke University Library

Harvard’s Baker Library, Kress Collection & Special Exhibits

HES

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