The late Angus Maddison (1927-2010) made an outstanding contribution to economics and economic history. Following a career as a senior economist in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) he worked on a monumental statistical analysis of the historical growth in the world economy over 2000 years including China. His statistical methods create an implicit criticism of the projections on economic growth and its influence on climate change. He has forced a rethink of theories of economic growth.