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Our approach is largely historical, argument by example. We leave it to the theoreticians and empiricists to take the argument in a more technical direction.¹ Throughout, we suppose that germs are self-interested and they have a research question, for example, how might our species improve the chances of survival, the answer to which might potentially benefit germs (or, harm them by less).

Focusing on the relatively unstudied status of women in classical political economy, this important collection of essays will inform, delight, and even surprise the reader. The essays provide testimony both to the intellectual richness of the period, as well as the extraordinary social and political events of the time. The most striking unifying theme of the work is how social and political contexts served to generate the economic ideas of and about women.

This volume contains papers given at the third biennial Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies Conference on Austrian Economics. The conference was held at a beautiful waterfront facility of Simon Fraser University on October 15 and 16, 2010. In spite of all warnings to expect fog and rain in the Pacific Northwest, the weather was sunny and mild, as were the spirits of the conferees. Our topic title, “Austrian Views on Experts and Epistemic Monopolies,” was perhaps a bit misleading because some of the views represented were not “Austrian.” Indeed, the editorial mission of Advances in Austrian Economics has been to promote dialogue between the “Austrian” tradition of economics and other traditions both within in economics and beyond. Participants discussed the problem of experts from several Austrian and non-Austrian perspectives. While representing different points of view, the participants did tend toward the view that experts may pose a problem in one way or another, especially when they enjoy an epistemic monopoly.

Muchof this volume of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology considers the contributions made by Warren J. Samuels to economic methodology, law and economics, and the history of economic thought. A brief biographical profile of Samuels is provided in the Volume 30A this year. Samuels established the A volume of RHETM as a place for longer articles, detailed book reviews, and other documents that did not fit into the standard journal article format. Later, the B and C volumes were created to preserve and publish archival document. Samuels remembers that “a goodly number of items…[were] given to me by Ed Witte in May/June 1957 when he was trying to lighten his load as he retired; I graduated [at] the same time…the original obstacle I faced was that some of our teachers and students [were] fearful of embarrassing themselves. I can assure you that this problem has not materialized” (Samuels by email, May 18, 2011).

I was invited by Sandra Peart and David Levy to take part in the Summer Institute held from 26 to 30 July 2004 at George Mason University. After some discussion I agreed to give two lectures, on my project on the use of the concept of the invisible hand and on the theory of economic policy of Lionel Robbins and Friedrich Hayek, and to participate in a public “conversation” with James M. Buchanan before the same group. Subsequently, I accepted Buchanan's invitation to have a videotaped private interview by him.