Heilbroner's basic premise is stunning in its elegant simplicity. He contends that throughout all of human history, despite the huge gulf in social organization, technological development, and cultural achievement that divides us from the earliest known traces of homo sapiens, there have really only been three distinct ways of looking at the future.
This is an examination of the writings of the philosophers featured in the author's book "The Worldly philosophers". Heilbroner guides the reader through works culled from the history of economic thought, and considers the core arguments of works seldom read, but often referred to. The works introduced range from the earliest economic thought found in the Bible and Aquinas, to major works such …