January 9, 2025
To my utter delight and surprise, I received a letter from Eve Menger—Carl Menger’s—granddaughter about a year ago.
Carl, born in 1840, was the founder of Austrian economics, a tradition that began with the publication of his monumental 1871 book, Principles of Economics.
Here is her letter to me, which I reproduce with her permission:
And it turns out that Eve isn’t done writing fascinating letters.
Here’s her recent letter to the editor of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought:
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Eve makes what I think is a valuable point, a point that certainly complicates good intellectual history:
The main thrust of the editors’ lengthy (over twenty-page) introduction is to deduce what Menger thought important in economic thought based on what he taught. I can say, from personal experience, that judging what a teacher believes to be important from what he or she teaches in an introductory class is a fraught methodology. For instance, I taught freshman chemistry and considered much of the material irrelevant to modern chemistry. I taught the “canon.” I taught what any educated person was expected to know about chemistry. For example, I discussed the periodic table, then already over 100 years old, but I certainly never discussed my own research, which I, at least, considered important.
The entire letter is stimulating.
I hope that Eve continues to write, comment, and illuminate us regarding her grandfather’s important legacy in the social sciences.