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In all probability, there are today only four persons — all social scientists — who have personally known Father Heinrich Pesch, the eminent German economist of the Jesuit Order, viz., Oswald von Nell‐Breuning, SJ, who, 93 years old, still is amazingly active as lecturer and writer, the Rev. Dr. mult. L. H. Adolf Geck (1898), retired, yet still engaged in social research, Rev. Joh. Messner (1891), Professor Emeritus of the University of Vienna, whom illness has recently incapacitated, and the author of this article (1900), who thinks himself fortunate to have gained — during his years of study at the University of Berlin — Pesch's paternal friendship.

Seeks to compare and conjoin three separate revolutionary movements in eighteenth century western society, led respectively by James Watt – technology, Adam Smith ‐economics and Thomas Jefferson – politics. Explores a contemporaneous link for all three and even a social connection in the case of Watt and Smith. Concludes that, though each strove for the individual freedom associated with his own particular field, the Three Wise Men of the Occident were joint champions of the all‐embracing concept of liberty.

The origin of “social solidarism” as a doctrine seems to be in France. Pierre Leroux (1797–1871) is credited with being the first who attached an ethical significance to the otherwise juridical expression of solidarism. Charles Gide, who himself belonged to the French solidarist movement, in his book (co‐authored with C. Rist), Histoire des Doctrines Economiques (1909), described the solidarist school as being influenced by the works of Leon Bourgeois, Pierre J. Proudhon, Charles Secretan and others.

The economic and financial picture of the whole world in the early 1980s does not look at all good despite the optimistic rhetoric used by the leaders of the seven major industrial democracies during the May 1983 Summit Conference held in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. Almost everywhere there are artificial monetary injections to produce another problematic boom with the well‐known residual effects, negative social and financial consequences. But beyond there are no visible signs that on this road the prevailing conditions of disequilibrium embedded in contemporary economies will vanish and a new, better international economic and financial order will emerge.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

The title indicates an evolution which in the prevailing idiom of economics would not be possible. One does not develop an economic system from a dogma, depending to some extent on how one chooses to define dogma. What is more, anyone who is familiar with Juan Donoso Cortes (1809–1853), the man who first designated solidarity as a dogma, knows that he was a political philosopher. And anyone who is familiar with Heinrich Pesch, the man who first outlined a system of economics which he called Solidarism, knows that he was a Jesuit priest, Now while Jesuits and political philosophers, especially Spanish Roman Catholic ones, probably have something to say to each other, what would the likes of them have to do with a value‐neutral science?

Professor Boris Ischboldin has devoted a lifetime of productive scholarship to economic science. By virtue of his native gifts and a highly cultured background he has attained to a breadth of scholarship which is reminiscent of that giant of modern economics, Joseph Schumpeter. Ischboldin's linguistic skills have enabled him to acquire an uncommon familiarity with the works of economists that is truly international in scope, and that is one factor which prompts me to compare him with Schumpeter. Among the results of his efforts are an approach to, or school of, economics which he chooses to call the School of Economic Synthesis. It involves, among other things, a synthesis of various approaches to analysing economic realities—approaches whose various practitioners often tended to regard their own as the one correct and only legitimate method. In less skillful hands, or perhaps because of less charitable hearts, diversity often resulted in a kind of tension that was not always creative, as well as a mutual exclusiveness and even scholastic in‐tolerance which put an unneeded burden on the progress of the science. With Professor Ischboldin and the co‐founder of the School of Economic Synthesis, Arthur Spiethoff, variety became instead the basis for complementary creativity! Thus, such disparate figures as David Ricardo and Wesley Mitchell, or Leon Walras and John Commons find themselves embraced into a single schema that Ischboldin calls, “a theory of economic laws and methodology”.

Anghel Rugina has written extensively on several topics of interest to social economists. Many of his ideas seem to have been influenced by his education and experiences first in Romania and then in Germany, where he did post‐doctoral work with Walter Eucken. In 1950 he emigrated to the United States where he taught at three different universities. His published works reveal a fascination for, but not an entirely sympathetic or uncritical view of, the writings of Walras, Marx and Keynes (among others). Eucken was a source of inspiration for him and it was probably during Rugina's association with Eucken at the University of Freibrug i.Br. during 1944–1948 that what Rugina later called “a new research programme” was conceived.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.