Professor Benjamin M. Friedman is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy, and formerly Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He has written or edited 17 books including The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth and Religion and the Rise of Capitalism - a fundamental reassessment of the foundations of current-day economics, showing how religious thinking has shaped economic thinking ever since the beginnings of modern Western economics and how this influence continues to be relevant today, especially in the United States.