Abstract

Massimo is a historian of modern and contemporary European history, with a particular focus on twentieth century France, United Kingdom and Italy. His research interests include history of economic thought, intellectuals, labour history and left politics. This paper will present some preliminary results of his current research on the relationship between leftist political engagement, academic profession, and economic ideas in Italy, France, German speaking countries and in the UK. He will focus on the prosopography of the first cohort of economists born between the 1840s and the 1860s, who were engaged in the socialist movement and advocated socialist economics during the last two decades of the 19th century. The purpose is to analyse the multiple relations and tensions between activist sphere and academic sphere during a historical conjuncture in which both the rise of the labour movement and the spread of the socialist economic thought occurred. Massiomo will argue that the study of the trajectories of these economists is essential to rediscover a “school” of economic thought which was characterized by a marked lack of doctrinal unity since its inception.