Economic thinking has a long history dating back to pre-Christian era. References to economics ideas and practices are found in Vedas, Bibles and Koran in the form of commandments and instructions. Economics for long was regarded as the art of house keeping/management. In fact, Economy was the title of a book by an ancient Greek historian and philosopher Xenophon (434-355 B.C.). Aristotle was another ancient Greek thinker(384-322 B.C) who authorized many works on philosophy, natural science and socio-economics problems. Another well-known Greek who reflected on economic matters was Plato, the author of the famous work, The Republic. Marcantilism was a pre-classical school of thought which flourished in Europe during the 17th and early 18th centuries. It believed in a commercial policy under which generation of stock of precious metals like gold and silver through an expert surplus was the main objective. Adam Smith and David Ricardo were the founders of the classical school of economics in Europe. They not only formulated economic laws governing production, exchange and distribution under capitalism, but also propounded an economic policy based on free international trade and laissez-faire (non-intervention). The exploitation of the proletariat (workers) under capitalism led to the writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883), a German philosopher with revolutionary zeal. He published two epoch-making works in collaboration with his friend and benefactor Friedrich Engels (1820-1895): The Communist Manifesto (1848). These two works immensely influenced the thinking of the contemporary world. From the chaos of the depression of the early 1930s grew the ideas of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) which are relevant till date. This book is an attempt to rekindle interest in the history of economics ideas.
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