Introduction: Editing Economists, what Content and what Form?

Like any other scientific editor, the economist who intends to spread the writings of his predecessors is faced with constant problems, beyond the question of who he will publish: what he should publish and how he should publish it. In the field of our discipline, the difficulties raised by these questions are not radically different from those which occur in other disciplines, including literature. Of course, in many respects dealing with these difficulties implies skills which are not usually the prerogative of the historian of economic thought. Nevertheless it also requires analytical abilities that the latter is in the habit of regarding as being his own. The fact remains that editing is a scholarly practice to which the historian of economic thought usually pays little attention. However, since the primary source materials that continue to be the foundation for research in our academic discipline are here at stake, its institutional recognition and spread depend on such a practice.