The Academic Scribblers, by William Breit and Roger L. Ransom offers a thoughtful and highly literate summary of economic thought in the twentieth century.
It presents the story of economics through the lives of twelve major economists, beginning with Alfred Marshall and concluding with Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman. In a very real sense, this book picks up where Robert Heilbroner’s classic The Wordly Philosophers leaves off.
Whereas Heilbroner begins with Smith and ends with Joseph Schumpeter, Breit and Ransom bring the story of twentieth century American and British economic theory up to the 1980s. The Academic Scribblers is an elegant summary of economic policy debates and an enticement into a happy engagement with the “dismal science” of economics.”
Link to the Book’s Amazon Page
The Ideas of Economists 