History as Pedagogy and Weapon: The Origin of Doctrinal Histories of Economic Thought in Britain

This paper offers a new perspective on the nature and methods of the history of economic thought by drawing on a sub-branch of history: the history of historiography. The focus is the formation of doctrinal history in Britain from the 1800s, with “doctrinal history” used as a shorthand to indicate those styles of writing the history of economic thought that study ideational referents such as doctrines, ideas, systems, and principles. Dugald Stewart’s commentary on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) in his lectures on political economy from 1799–1810 is shown to be a key moment for the propagation of this style of history, not least because it was subsequently relayed to a general audience through the Edinburgh Review. David Ricardo then used doctrinal history to present his Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation (1817) as superseding Smith’s Wealth of Nations. The most important role in securing doctrinal history’s longevity into the present, however, was played by J. R. McCulloch, who established a canon for political economy in his Literature of Political Economy (1845). The paper concludes by considering the resilience and costs of doctrinal history in the present.