New Light on the Origins of Modem Economics*

This paper reviews recent books on the 17th- and 18th-century economics for the Lght rhq shed on the origins of economics wuh porticular reference 10 Hutchison's Before Adam Smith. The three sections focus successively on the role of secularization in the origins of economics, Hutchinson's chronological divisions as used in his book, and some relationships between this part of the history of thought and modern controversy. The importance of recent research on Jansenist theology and economic order, pre-Smithian economics as crucial to understanding identification of an alternative surplus approach or production-exchange dual in economics are emphasized in sections 1 and 3 respectively.