. >> now on booktv we want to introduce you to professor lanny ebenstein, also the author of this book, "chicagonomics: the evolution of chicago free market economics". talking about the chicago school, what are we talking about? >> a long history of economics at the university of chicago and the most significant economist at the university of chicago have been the free-market tradition, what "chicagonomics: the evolution of chicago free market economics" is about is the history of economics at the university of chicago, starting with guys like frank night and henry simon, moving on to milton friedman, friedrich hayek who taught at the university of chicago and others. >> host: why did they come up in chicago? >> once there was a nucleus of oriented economists, it attracted other economists of similar perspective, the center of classical economics in the 20th century. >> we talk about classical economics what we talking about? >> really good question. one of the things i try to distinguish in the book is classical liberalism to contemporary libertarianism and classical liberalism is th

. >> now we want to introduce you to professor lanny ebenstein who is the author of this book, "chicago-nomics." when we talk about the chicago school, what are we talking about? >> guest: there's a long history of economics at the university of chicago. and the most significant economists at the university of chicago have been in the free market tradition. so what chicagonomics is about is the history of economics at the university of chicago starting out with some of the early economists such as frank knight and henry simon and then moving on to milton friedman, friedrich hayek who taught for a time at the university of chicago and others. >> host: why is it that they ended up at chicago? >> guest: that's a good question. i think that once there was a nucleus of classical, liberal-oriented economists at the university of chicago, it attracted other economists of a similar perspective there, and so it really became the center of classical liberal economics during the 20th century. >> host: when we talk about classical liberal economics, what are we talking about? >> guest: that's a really --