Our understanding of the world is structured and limited by the language and metaphors we use. Each individual's vision is partly socially constructed by shared frameworks of interpretation; but it is also the product of particular life-experiences and an imaginative capacity to invent new perspectives.

The Romantic Economist is inevitably shaped by my background, which has given me a somewhat unusual combination of perspectives on the great discipline of economics. For much of the last eight years, I have been privileged to work at the London School of Economics and Political Science, teaching postgraduate courses in applied and theoretical political economy — the sister discipline of economics. My own university training was, however, in philosophy and classical literature. Despite or because of that, I spent the first seventeen years of my career in international finance — as a pension fund manager and subsequently an adviser at two investment banks and the Bank of England on European Monetary Union and supply-side reform in Europe. While in the City of London, I was lucky enough to have access to many of the best and brightest in the economics profession. I also gained an insight into what motivates entrepreneurs and structures the behaviour of operators in financial markets. At the same time, I retained a strong interest in philosophy and literature, and became especially fascinated by the Romantic thinkers and poets who wrote around two centuries ago.