Francesca Gagliardi and David Gindis (Eds.), Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey M. H
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Francesca Gagliardi and David Gindis (Eds.), Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey M. Hodgson Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2019. x+373 pages. USD 165 (hardback) Alain Marciano 1 Accepted: 18 November 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Reviewing a collective volume is not an easy task. It is indeed difficult to summarize and devote similar attention to each of the contributions, which most of the time consists in summarizing the introduction where the editors have already done such a summary. The difficulty is even greater when the book under review is a Festschrift, the risk being that one talks more of the contributors than of the author whose work is celebrated in the book, and especially when the contributors are important economists – some of the most important in the profession – who write about someone who is a particularly distinguished scholar, one of the most interesting, original, provocative economists of the last decades. This is exactly the challenge we have to face with these Essays in Honour of Geoffrey M. Hodgson that Francesca Gagliardi and David Gindis – two of Hodgson’s students – have gathered to celebrate their “mentor” and “friend” (p. 11). Hodgson is an important scholar, not only an economist actually, but an economist who has understood that economics is more than economics, one who “has made pathbreaking contributions to institutional economics, evolutionary economics, economic methodology, the history of economic thought and social theory more broadly” (p. 2). In addition, the contributors who have agreed to write in to celebrate his work are really “world-leading scholars” (p. 2). As Deirdre McCloskey notes in her endorsement for the book, “All the best bowlers are here, at the top of their games, the better to test your batting skills. It’s a testimony to Hodgson’s breadth and brilliance, but more: the state of plan in a major field of economics” (emphasis added). McCloskey means “neoinstitutionalism” or “institutional economics.” This is no exaggeration. Hence, the temptation is always present to talk of what these top-notch scholars have written. We will try to resist it, but we cannot but insist: the 19 original contributions that are
* Alain Marciano [email protected]
1
Université de Montpellier and MRE, Faculté d’Économie, Avenue Raymond Dugrand CS 79606, F-34960 Montpellier cedex 2, France
A. Marciano
gathered in this book are of the utmost interest. One cannot but recommend reading them and, of course, reading the book. The different chapters are spread over 3 parts. “Foundations,” the first part of the book – 5 chapters – is about the philosophical and methodological foundations of Hodgson’s work. This is particularly useful to understand the “ontological and epistemological statements” of “one of the most philosophically minded economists writing today” (p. 3). The second part of the book – consisting of 7 chapters – is about “Institutional Economics,” one if not the field in which Hodgson
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