An economic historian is a scholar who specializes in the study of economic and business patterns and practices throughout history. Economic historians collaborate closely with both traditional historians and pure economists, occupying an interdisciplinary position at the intersection of the two disciplines. An economic historian’s work will typically include theoretical and statistical models, as well as attempts to ground the work in specific historical events and circumstances. Some economic historians strive for a detached and unbiased approach to history, while others, including some of the most famous and early proponents of both capitalism and socialism, have written works from more ideological perspectives.
Economic history, like cultural studies and other disciplines with clear roots in other fields, straddles the line between economics and history. The discipline arose during the interwar years, but its status at many universities remained ambiguous, as some schools treated economic historians as primarily historians, while others treated them as economists, and still others saw them as filling a unique middle ground. In some academic systems, there is a distinction made between the work of an economic historian, who studies the evolution of economic systems and practices over time, and the work of a historical economist, who tests economic theories using historical examples and methodology.
In the 1960s, a new academic movement called new economic history arose, which applied extremely rigorous statistical methods to key historical events in order to better understand the underlying economic causes and effects. This movement, known as cliometrics (literally “measuring Clio, the muse of history”), arose at a time when historians were focusing more attention on both economic issues and statistical methodology in general. After the gradual decline in interest in statistical methodology among the broader community of historians, cliometrics drew economic historians away from history departments and toward economics departments.
Economic history has attracted a mix of technocrats and ideologues throughout its history. Karl Marx, who saw himself as an economic historian in essence, would have viewed himself as a neutral observer of history. After all, Marx was a contemporary of Leopold von Ranke, whose ideas on the central importance of objectivity in history influenced generations of historians’ methods. Milton Friedman, an outspoken proponent of market capitalism in the twentieth century, also worked as an economist and had an ideological agenda. Friedman, like most modern economic historians, admitted to having an intellectual stake in the work he produced.