In this concise yet comprehensive history, Heinz D. Kurz traces the long arc of economic thought from its emergence in ancient Greece to its systematic presentation among classical thinkers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to the influential work of more recent scholars such as Paul Samuelson and Kenneth J. Arrow. With a keen eye for how economic insights are acquired, lost, and reborn, Kurz shows how dynamic individuals give old ideas new life and how historical events provoke different approaches and theories.