|Peter Boettke|
This is a video of Janek Wasserman from a few years back introducing himself, but I particularly like the part where he describes his self-understanding as an intellectual historian.
Janek Wasserman from CIT Multimedia Services on Vimeo.
Since that time, Janek has published The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas (Yale, 2019). There is a lot to recommend about the book, but also I believe some weaknesses/blind spots. It is, however, required reading for all interested in the Austrian School of Economics. The book is in the genre of social history as developed in the field of intellectual history. I am actually a big fan of the “Ideas in Context” movement, and “Social History” as the focus on the lives of ordinary people, underrepresented people, rather than the exclusively on the elites.
In 2021, I think I will start a project on social history to clarify for myself what I mean by it and why I am drawn to it both as an intellectual historian and economic historian/comparative systems economists, but where I find contemporary practice falling short, especially in the field of intellectual history of neoliberalism. Don’t worry, I will try to keep Dennett’s Rules for Intellectual Engagement in mind throughout and if I fail hold me accountable for that.