The underlying idea and motive for the book is that the notion of complexity may humanize the social sciences, may conceive the complex human being as more human, and turn reality as assumed in our doing social science into a more complex, that is a richer reality for all. The main focus of this book is on new thinking in complexity, with complexity to be taken as derived from the Latin word complexus: ‘that which is interwoven.’ The trans-disciplinary approach advocated here will be trans-disciplinary in two ways: firstly, by going beyond the separate disciplines within the fields of both natural sciences and social sciences, and, secondly, by going beyond the separate cultures of the natural sciences and of the social sciences and humanities.

Main Currents in Modem Economics deserves to be the classic it is. At the time of its original publication in 1962, Ben Seligman, a scholar’s scholar, had immersed himself in the development of economic thought since 1870. This product of his efforts is truly timeless. Why is Main Currents still modern and surprisingly up-to-date? For Seligman, the story begins with the revolt of German historical writers against the rigidity of classical doctrine, a natural starting point for contemporary theory. He takes us from the world of Thorstein Veblen to Galbraith’s theory of countervailing power and the affluent society—worlds that he makes us understand are not so far apart., Seligman also shows us how the doctrines begin to repeat themselves. Tradition is reaffirmed with the rediscovery of marginalism by Jevons, the Austrians, and J. B. Clark. A more neutral version of “equilibrium economics” is supplied by Leon Walras and Vilfredo Pareto, a main current of thought extended by John R. Hicks and Paul A. Samuelson. Seligman characterizes the principal trait of modern doctrine as the use of technique for its own sake. Dismissing G.L.S. Shackle’s writing on uncertainty, he criticizes Shackle’s use of continuous rather than discontinuous function., Main Currents may have been published too soon to be fully appreciated. Selig-man’s focus on the thrust toward technique now has a ring of truth that can no longer be ignored. As Ray Canterbery notes in his introduction, in some respects only the names of the players have changed, and Main Currents’ pertinence to today’s issues is self-evident. Economics has moved so deeply into technique that the next generation may have to rediscover the past in order to find its way out. Seligman s book is a good place to begin the journey.

J. A. Hobson was one of the most influential social, economic and political theorists of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. In this volume, first published in 1990, eight scholars reassess the importance and relevance of his work today and affirm him as a major British thinker. These original studies place Hobson in context by explaining his intellectual antecedents: Cobden, Ruskin, nineteenth-century social and psychological theories and economic thought. The book provides an overview of the novelty and incisiveness of Hobson's contribution to British liberal theory and radical practice. Historians, economists, social and political theorists and students of international affairs will find this an important book for a fuller understanding of early twentieth-century British progressive thought.