This project would not have started without Ed Lake, Daniel Franklin and Andrew Franklin, all of whom encouraged me to sit down and put a proposal together on the history of economic thought. I am extremely grateful to Zanny Minton Beddoes, Ed Carr and Tom Wainwright at The Economist, who gave me generous book leave, and to Tom Standage who guided the book towards its publication. Ed Lake was an outstanding editor from start to finish. Fiona Screen provided excellent copy-editing. Neesha Rao lent me her heavily annotated copy of The Wealth of Nations. Kipper Williams, Pamela Holmes and Dylan Williams offered useful ideas and insights along the way. Johannes Jaeckle read an early draft of the book and offered extremely useful comments. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Simon Cox, who read the finished draft of the book and, in his comments, improved it immeasurably. And I offer my thanks to some of my teachers at university: Harold Carter, David Nally, Philip Howell, Ivan Scales, Emma Rothschild, Amartya Sen, Kevin O’Rourke and Michael Sandel.
Throughout the whole process, Shalini Rao gave me love and support. This book is dedicated to her.