Thorstein Bunde Veblen, the American economist and social theorist, is perhaps best known for his ironic style, a style that was at one with his life. Although he is still thought of abroad as the most influential American social scientist, among social scientists in America his influence has almost vanished. He is virtually unknown to college students, even if a scattered lot of Veblen's concepts—most obviously, "conspicuous consumption"—are unwittingly part of their speech and analyses.

Born on a Wisconsin farm, Veblen developed the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of American industrial society in the early twentieth century. He emphasized qualitative relationships in the historical process, and his aim was an inclusive theory of social change. However, the largest number of those who have walked in Veblen's footsteps are known for quantitative, essentially unhistorical, often antitheoretical investigations. Where his followers have...