Economics and Economic Policy in Britain, 1946-1966 by T. W. Hutchison. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968.

Professor Hutchison is a very distinguished historian of economic thought who has hitherto written little or nothing in the field of economic policy-making. In this book he is concerned not so much with economic policy as with econo¬mists as advisers on economic policy. His method is the method of the historian of economic thought. He looks at different economists recommending and criticising policies, looks at the outcomes of policies and sizes up the value of the advice. As one of those whom among many others he has chosen to dissect in this way, I have no ground for complaint. My fellow specimens differ in different periods. Those who most frequently appear on his paper include Harrod, Balogh, Robertson, Hicks, Joan Robinson, Kahn, Johnson, Warswick, Dow, Kaldor, Day, Paish. He looks at what was written during various periods and in relation to the issues of those periods: the early post-War phase of adjust¬ment to the post-War world and the devaluation of 1949; the post-Korean ex¬pansion and the new monetary policy of 1951-55; the development of growth consciousness and of persistent inflation during 1955-60; the continuing pro¬blems of growth and those of entry into the common market during 1960-66, where his story ends. It is fascinative, particularly for the victims, to look again in hind-sight and see where one was reasonably right and where one was obviously wrong.