A. E. Thompson

The author fancies himself something of a prose poet, and he sure is: the sentences flows musically along displaying both great erudition and taste. But he takes forever to provide the promised information on the evolution of economic doctrine. You see him swirling the wine in the glass, holding it up against the light, sniffing it, and then bloody swirling it again – and must ask: just when is he finally going to drink some of it and comment upon that?
The book was first published in Aberdeen 1931, then republished in New York in 1978, but I doubt it will be published once more, I do not think people of today will find the time to read such books. (Though there are obviously fans of Elie Faure and George Santayana around.)

Mind you, he is good, here are the opening sentences in the chapter on Karl Marx: “In a volume of ampler proportions than this, the early history of socialism might claim, and might deservedly receive, the tribute of an independent chapter, though doubtless it might be urged that these early socialists were dreamers and not socialists. Here they must be content with such notice as is indispensable for a comprehension of Marx. Socialism, according to taste, begins with Plato, in virtue of his advocacy of communism; or with Moore’s Utopia, where the evils of private property are denounced and the doctrine of exploitation expounded. But viewed from the Marxian angle, the socialism which preceded Marx, and which earned his undisguised contempt, was that of the so-called Utopian socialists, whose writings date from the earlier part of the nineteenth century.”
Worthy of declamation, but some would undoubtedly like to see it shortened, especially as it goes on like this for much of the book.… (altro)