This book traces the link of major modern trends and ideas in political economy to economic doctrines 'of the past. With high scholarship warmed by humor, the reader is introduced to a host of earlier economic thinkers-Boisguillebert, Petty, Quesnay, Turgot, Smith, Ricardo, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and many others. Their ideas are revealed against the background o( the age in which they. lived and wrote.

The book indicates the critical use which Marxist economic theory made of classical political economy and the latter’s role and place in development of the social sciences.