Francesco Boldizzoni

Francesco Boldizzoni born in 1979 is an Italian academic and historian. He is currently the professor of political science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, having ago taught at the University of Turin and the University of Helsinki, and held research positions at Clare Hall, Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for the discussing of Societies in Cologne.

Boldizzoni is one of the main European figures in political economy. He has reported influential contributions to the picture and history of capitalism and developed an intellectual utility example that emphasizes the relevance of the history of ideas and belief to the apprehension of the innovative economy. He has advocated an anti-positivist approach to the historical and social sciences, which draws on social constructionism, cultural interpretation, and critical theory.

Boldizzoni gained international fame with his book The Poverty of Clio, published by Princeton University Press in 2011, where he dissected the accounts of past economic life made by neoinstitutionalist scholars in the US since the end of the Cold War. He depicted these attempts to rewrite history in the light of the mood of the present as examples of neoliberal science fiction. The book sparked a heated debate and was attacked by economist Deirdre McCloskey. McCloskey blamed Boldizzoni's sense of intellectual superiority and contempt for American culture which, in her view, had led him to dismiss the tools of mainstream economics as irrelevant to the study of the past. Boldizzoni responded by inviting neoliberal economists to seek psychological assistance for harbouring "the not-so-conscious belief that the past can be treated as a giant Wal-Mart".