Pity the economist, for if he had read Plato he may have chosen a different discipline. In a Brief History of Economics: Artful Approaches to the Dismal Science, Ray Canterbery all but concedes that throughout history, economists have been trying to make sense of shadows on the wall.

A Florida State University professor of economics, Canterbery argues that economic theories are products of their time and influence the culture in which they are produced. Adam Smith's “invisible hand” was inspired by Newton's orderly universe. Charles Dicken's novels were indictments of a Victorian economy and prompted discussions about how wealth should be distributed. Darwin's theory of natural selection was submitted as proof that business regulations are a defiance of natural law.

Canterbery traces economic thought from feudalism to the casino economy of today, a term he created to describe a system where speculation is more important than production. The economists profiled are very sure about their truths. But their followers are very willing to discard them when a recession or depression prove them wrong and resurrect them for the next crisis. Thus in the 20th century we've endured Keynesian, post-Keynesian and neoclassical Keynesian policy makers.

Canterbery leavens his discussion with humor. He describes the early industrialists as a group with which one would not want to drink ale. He reintroduces the utilitarian Jeremy Benthan as “… whom we first met in Chapter 3 and last saw as a mummy at the University of London.” And he spoofs the assumptions of the new classicals by having factory managers glued to TV screens and using loudspeakers to inform workers of the latest economic news.

Humor is needed because Canterbery clearly spells out why economics is a dismal science. After a 500-year evolution of the market economy, economists have concluded that there is a relation between a nation's money supply and GDP. Economists cannot agree on which causes which; rather, they tend to gather in polarized camps wherein one says that money decides everything important and the other, that it is a mere veil behind which everything important happens.

Ray Canterbery explicates the philosophical foundation of both positions. It may help the reader to separate the shadows from what is real in economic debates.—J.C.