In October 2009, The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) was formed through a grant of $50 million from financier and philanthropist George Soros. From this cornucopia emerged INET’s Inaugural Grant Program, a bold response to the recent economic crisis. The program aims to encourage new economic thinking, and it has the drive and resources to do so.On 17 Novermber 2010, the Institute awarded a grant, as part of the Inaugural Grant Program, to support Sophus Reinert and Francesca Viano of Cambridge University in the creation of two book series dedicated to the publication of critical editions of major but often neglected economic texts. The series, Economic Ideas that Built America (ed. F. Viano) and Economic Ideas that Built Europe (ed. S. Reinert), are being produced through a collaboration between Anthem Press and The History of Political Economy Project and are already well underway.
Both series will be defined by high quality texts enriched with introductions, explanatory footnotes and bibliographies. The wide selection of volumes produced will grant readers the opportunity to encounter a diverse range of key historic works with an aim to refining their comprehension of economics both past and present, in keeping with INET’s chief objective – to ‘return economics to its core mission of guiding and protecting society.’