The Classical School

'Williams has chosen an engaging cast of characters; his collection is full of well-lived lives and grisly endings ... Consume it as a whole or dip in and out. Either way, he leaves you a lot wiser.' - Philip Aldrick, Times

Opinions vary about who really counts as a classical economist: Marx  thought it was everyone up to Ricardo. Keynes thought it was everyone up  to Keynes. But there's a general agreement about who belongs to the  heroic early phase of the discipline. Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Malthus, Mill, Marx: scarcely a day goes by without their names being publicly invoked to celebrate  or criticise the state of the world or the actions of governments.

Few of us, though, have read their works. Fewer still realise that the economies that  many of them were analysing were quite unlike our modern one, or the  extent to which they were indebted to one another. So join the Economist's Callum Williams to join the dots. See how the modern edifice of economics was built, brick by brick, from their ideas and quarrels. And find out which parts stand the test of time.