Robert L. Heilbroner (1919- ) is the Norman Thomas Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research.　He has two children and currently resides in New York City.　Heilbroner graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1940 with a degree in history, government, and economics, and worked briefly for the Office of Price Administration.　After service in the Army during World War II, he took a job as a business economist with a large commodity-trading house.　However, he soon decided that he liked writing more than office work and took a year's leave.　He never went back to business.

For two decades, thousands of instructors have used The Worldly Philosophers as an introduction to the lives and thoughts of the great economists.　Sales of all editions of this book have been estimated at approximately two million.　The combined sales of all the economics books written by Heilbroner, counting joint authorships, may make him the top-selling economics authors of all time.　In his writing Heilbroner brings an economic point of view to social and political problems.

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The Worldly Philosophers is a bestselling classic that not only enables us to see more deeply into our history but helps us better understand our own times. In this seventh edition, Robert L. Heilbroner provides a new theme that connects thinkers as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The theme is the common focus of their highly varied ideas -- namely, the search to understand how a capitalist society works. It is a focus never more needed than in this age of confusing economic headlines. In a bold new concluding chapter entitled "The End of the Worldly Philosophy?" Heilbroner reminds us that the word "end" refers to both the purpose and limits of economics. This chapter conveys a concern that today's increasingly "scientific" economics may overlook fundamental social and political issues that are central to economics. Thus, unlike its predecessors, this new edition provides not just an indispensable illumination of our past but a call to action for our future.