Edwin Cannan, prodigious author and scholar whose name is inextricably linked with two great economic institutions, Adam Smith and the London School of Economics (LSE), probably had his greatest success as a professor. He nurtured a generation of scholars, teachers and writers at the LSE during his three decades as a dominant figure in economics there, from when the school opened in 1895 until the spring term of 1926 when he retired.
Cannan was almost solely responsible for the gradual change of direction of the economic thought of the LSE from Marshallian economics to classical liberalism. For this he was very much admired; at his death the student paper wrote: 'His influence was truly remarkable. To the outside world, and to his students, whether specialists in economics or not, he typified the School'. Among other accomplishments throughout his life, Cannan contributed twenty-five entries to the original Palgrave's Dictionary of Poitical Economy and between 1895 and 1935 had sixty book reviews published in The Economic Journal.
This collection brings together Cannon's major contributions to the theory of distribution, quantity theory and the definition of "Classical Economics" as well as touching on his life at a more personal level in the articles and reminiscences written by scholars and friends.