History/Political Science paper by Glanz, Susan
The Long Road of Paul Samuelson’s Economics, an Introductory Textbook, to Hungary
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
Paul A. Samuelson (1915-2009), was the first American Nobel laureate in economics and one of the foremost academic economists of the 20th century. He is quoted as saying” "I don't care who writes a nation's laws, or crafts its treatises, if I can write its economics textbooks," and he did. Paul Samuelson’s Economics is one of the most successful textbooks ever published in the field. The first edition was published in the USA in 1948. It immediately became a bestseller with sales of more than 120,000 copies in the first year. While this text, in various editions, was used in the majority of American colleges’ introductory economics courses, students in Hungary remained cut off from the concepts and theories described in the book. This presentation will look at two interrelated issues; the long road the book had to travel before it reached Hungarian college students in 1976, by then the 10th edition of the American textbook hit the US market; and the discrepancies between the English text and the Hungarian translation. The paper will also look at the Hungarian reception of the textbook.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Professor of Economics, St. John's U. in NY.