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In order to understand the various strands of general equilibrium theory, why it has taken the forms that it has since the time of Leon Walras, and to appreciate fully a view of the present state of general equilibrium theorizing, it is essential to understand Walras's work and examine its influence. The first section of the book accordingly examines the foundations of Walras's work. These include his philosophical and methodological approach to economic modeling, his views on human nature, and the basic components of his general equilibrium models. The second section examines how the influence of his ideas has been manifested in the theorizing of his successors, surveying the models of theorists such as H. L. Moore, Vilfredo Pareto, Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Abraham Wald, John von Neumann, J. R. Hicks, Kenneth Arrow, and Gerard Debreu. The treatment also examines recent models of many types in which Walras's influence is explicitly acknowledged.

When Walras's Market Models was published, a friend wrote to me that he hoped that it would stimulate research on Walras's work. I am very pleased that his wish is coming true. A number of writers have reexamined it from new perspectives. It is, perhaps, inevitable that the quality and tone of the texts is uneven, and it is to be hoped that in the future all Walrasian research can be done carefully, in good taste, in a dispassionate fashion, and without rhetorical devices and patronizing remarks. In any event, I have presented in my book the results of 30 years of study of Walras's work, and I invite the reader to contrast what I have written with differing expositions. I have nothing to add to those results at this time, except the data which follow.

In order that this essay may be clear to the reader, some understandings about terminology must be established. First, if we speak of "theories that were formulated in the past," ordinarily we mean to leave open the question of whether they are still valid, and if we speak of "past theories," ordinarily we imply that they have been discarded and that implies that they were defective and were supplanted by current theories. Nevertheless, in this essay the latter term, used for the sake of brevity, will have the same meaning as the former expression. If a past theory is considered to be invalid, that will be staled explicitly.