Books & Reviews

Nelson and Winter among Top 100 Economic Thinkers

This is the English translation of Dortier's essay explaining why Nelson and Winter are among the top 100 economists of all time.

June 10, 2012

Evolutionary History: Uniting History and Biology to Understand Life on Earth

We will provide our own review of the book in the future. In the meantime you can read Scrantons' review in Technology and Culture.

May 18, 2012

Richard Nelson on Sidney Winter

On October 16, 2003, Richard Nelson gave a speech at conference honoring the work of Sidney Winter. The conference was held at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. On the 30th anniversary of Nelson and Winter (1982), Etss.net is pleased…

April 27, 2005

Not Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

Richard Nelson reviews (April 27, 2005) Richerson and Boyd's Not by Genes Alone, a new book on the evolution of culture. The authors accepted our invitation to respond to Nelson's review. Registered users etss.net can post their own comments on the book…

December 31, 2004

Knowledge and Competitive Advantage: The Coevolution of Firms, Technology, and National Institutions

Johann Peter Murmann compares the development of the synthetic dye industry in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States through the lenses of evolutionary theory. As Murmann demonstrates, a complex coevolutionary process linking firms, technology, and national institutions resulted in very different…

December 28, 2004

The Evolving Economy

This volume contains 20 of Ulrich Witt's essays on evolutionary economics written between 1985 and 2001. Some of the issues he addresses include the biological foundations of economic behavior, the dissemination of new industrial technologies under network externalities, and the application of…

September 26, 2004

Debate on Larmarckism in Social Evolution

In June 2004, Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjorn Knudsen circulated a paper under a title of The Limits of Larmarckism Revisited. What followed was a very interesting debate provoked by a response from Richard Nelson. Geoffrey Hodgson, Thorbjorn Knudsen, John van Wyhe, Marion…

January 22, 2002

Dawinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science

Howard E. Aldrich reviews (January 21, 2002) for etss.net a new book about the meme concept edited by Robert Aunger. Aunger brought together both supporters and opponents of meme theory (Susan Blackmore, Maurice Bloch, Robert Boyd, Rosaria Conte, David L Hull, Adam…

January 9, 2001

Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process

For our third original review (published January 9, 2001), Keith Pavitt has taken on the challenging task of evaluating this important new edited book for etss.net. John Ziman (editor) brought together leading scholars on technological change (John Ziman, Eva Jablonka, Joel Mokyr,…

May 10, 2000

Social Transformations. A General Theory of Historical Development. Expanded Edition

We continue today (May 9, 2000) our book review feature with Charles Tilly's reviews Stephen Sanderson's "Social Transformations. A General Theory of Historical Development. Expanded Edition." Stephen Sanderson writes a response clarifying his position. Share your thoughts on the book or the…