Robert Heilbroner was an economic historian and the bestselling author of many books, including The Worldly Philosophers, which launched his scholarly career and has sold nearly four million copies, The Making of Economic Society, and An Inquiry into the Human Prospect. A graduate of Harvard, he later earned a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research, where he became Norma Thomas Professor of Economics and remained for some fifty years. Heilbroner died in January 2005.