Product Description

In 1980, Paul Romer solved a problem originally identified by Adam Smith and thereby ushered in a new understanding of economic growth. Using Romer's discovery as a window, this title looks out over two centuries' worth of insights and false starts by some of history's best-known economists.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #215255 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Review
"A fascinating new book..." The Economist "A fascinating journey through the world of economic thought... If you like reading stories of high intellectual drama, if you want to know the origin of ideas that, as Keynes said, 'are dangerous for good or evil,' this book is for you." Paul Krugman, The New York Times Book Review "...perfectly riveting... In what is, at heart, an excellent intellectual history, Warsh shows how the ideas of innovation and economic growth began with Adam Smith and bubbled up only to be submerged again and again." Tim Harford, Financial Times"

About the Author
* Formerly a Boston Globe columnist, DAVID WARSH writes the online newsletter Economic Principals. * Author Web site: www.kwonbook.com

Customer Reviews

Excellent coverage, a bit more depth and better language would make it a book to keep coming back to
As someone with only a basic background in Micro- and Macro- Economics (towards which I had a rather cavalier attitude during b-school), I found this history extremely illuminating. The author tracks the central ideas in economics through Adam Smith to 2006 - telling the history of how Economics has historically treated the puzzle of growth (i.e., increasing returns) through technological change. Along the way, you get to meet a whole host of brilliant economists and come to appreciate the nuances of what gets them excited.
I also began to appreciate that the common refrain against serious economic discussion "...but it is just common sense" not only indicates our deep ignorance about the topic, but that it is only by understanding (and, further, learning to measure) the economic changes that one can begin hope to benefit from it. For example, it is intuitively well understood that technological innovation makes for good economics - but it seems a terribly difficult question to answer "how and how much?"! If governments and businesses knew "how and how much" on more economic concepts, we'd be rid of a lot of random policies based on seemingly sound common sense but bad economics.
The reasons this doesn't get 5 stars are:
(a) typos abound in the book - surprising from someone who has written 3 books and perhaps many columns (the author doesn't furnish his educational background though!)
(b) Hilarious 'Americanisms' through the book. Sample: "visit with" (which seems to be the preserve of public speakers in the US) and "Many various things..." (!!!). I wish a serious book hoping to go down as a definitive history on growth economics used better language - this is like elegant suits with cheap lining which don't last.
(c) In an effort to simplify and entertain, the thread of actual economics keeps being lost or muddeled while you read about the various characters and digressions. The style is great to give you a good feel of what it means to do Economics, but the actual content needs deeper treatment. For example, the chapter about Romer's paper actually talks more about other people and topics than the key topic this book is about! I understand this is a fine line to tread for an author, but I'd learn from Simon Singh (Fermat's last theorem, Code book), Gary Zukav (Dancing Wu-Li Masters), or Richard Rhodes (Making of the atomic bomb) and make the assumption that someone who buys a book about economic theory would be looking for a serious treatment of the content. This book won't be read by your typical business traveller or the Oprah's book club, so the trap of mass appeal is just not worth it.
Having said this, this book is still a great exposition of economic history - had I read it before my b-school courses, perhaps I'd have had the sense to learn (and get better grades too) and appreciate that Economics is closer to our lives than we think. For those with no background in economics and just a passing interest (but not enough to learn the concepts), this is still an interesting and very contemporary introduction.

Economic History for the Gossip Column
David Warsh's book about how Paul Romer cracked the question of the economics of knowledge came highly recommended. As a knowledge worker with an appreciation of books that explain, and help me explain, the world, it seemed like a book I needed to read.

Though I don't have any formal economics qualification I learned just enough when at college to be able to teach the basics, and covered Economics in my MBA. I've read plenty of the primary texts - Smith, Marx, Schumpeter, Keynes, Hayek, Coase - plenty of "pop" economics - Galbraith, Kay, Krugman, Seabright - and a few textbooks - I was in the middle of Samuelson and Nordhaus's when I ordered this book.

What I was expecting was probably somewhere between David Landes's The Wealth And Poverty Of Nations, another book with a clear Adam Smith allusion, and Why Globalisation Works by Martin Wolf, a journalist as is David Warsh, but though Warsh's book has its merits it measures up to neither of these works.

The author commences more or less with an overview of the politics of the closed world of economics academe. It proceeds with a chatty, sometimes quite interesting but ultimately overlong History of Economics, given the book's central purpose. JK Galbraith's book of that name is more comprehensive and more entertaining for the author's undisguised viewpoints and prejudices. Although Warsh uses this section for context it is overdone, and ends up as a very long aside.

There are some diverting biographical notes for the uninitiated on Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Mill, Marshall and Keynes amongst the more well-known economists. Some less well-known characters from Economics are also profiled, together with the origins of some key economic concepts such as The Invisible Hand, Comparative Advantage, Supply and Demand, and Externalities. There are also some interesting historical perspectives, such as the founding of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts and, shortly after, of Harvard University, and tales such as Harvard's (lost) battle with MIT to recruit Kenneth Arrow. Equally interesting are some of his excursions into analogy and illustration, such as William Henry's bloodflow model, the invention of the bra, and why Brits are called limeys.

But much of the background information is so tangential and lengthy that you have to keep reminding yourself what the book is supposed to be about. While Romer's domestic arrangements will doubtless be fascinating in his biography, here they are a distraction here. And the news that James Buchanan's "career makes an interesting story" evoked a sigh of long-suffering as I anticipated yet another excursion away from the point. I don't need to know if these guys take milk in their coffee!

It's not until about page 150 that the book really gets to the point. I was hoping this would be a pivotal moment, and that from here on we'd stop wandering off, but that doesn't happen.

Warsh is also sometimes a little off-beam in his thinking. He suggests, for example that Game Theory should be known as Strategic Thought. Actually, Game Theory is a part of Strategic Thought. Avinash Dixit (who gets a number of namechecks) and Susan Skeath refer to Games Of Strategy in the title of their excellent book on the subject, but still talk about Game Theory.

Also irritating is the poor proofreading, as evidenced by all sorts of typos like "he didn't try explain it" (p66), " a man who had receive every honour" (p124), "Nowegian" (p127) and the almost-sentence "The trip to the store one had to make in order to buy a candy bar as an armful of groceries" (p114). Eh? And what exactly does "thereafter everything would be jake" mean (p64)? Even "Samuelson" is spelt incorrectly at one point. Clusters of these are scattered throughout (I marked about 26 errors, but I don't think I marked them all), suggesting the proofreader sampled the text rather than checked it thoroughly.

There is some annoying repetition (he explains twice what stochastic shocks are, for example). And given Warsh's erudition, why is there no bibliography? There is plenty of evidence that he has actually read the primary texts, not cribbed the basics from Economics for Idiots, so it would have been really useful to have had a reference point for how to get more detail.

Despite my criticisms, this is a good, entertaining read. Warsh is at his most impressive when he is piecing together the various strands to the story. This is remarkably complex, with a cast of players worthy of a Cecil B DeMille production, but Warsh makes it look easy.

However, it's not what I'd term an "economics book", insofar as it rarely goes into any subject in any real depth. Not economics for the tabloids, but maybe economics for the Tatler.

And given the number of flaws, I couldn't see how I could give it more than three stars. With better proofreading and a bibliography it would have been four.

Glorious nerds
If you're looking for the next "Freakonomics" or "Undercover Economist", this isn't quite it. But if you are looking for a riveting intellectual history from a journalist who has been following the profession for decades, look no further. I really adored this book - ostensibly about the importance of knowledge for economic growth, but really a jumping-off point for a carefully-reported history of economic thought for the last hundred years. And although serious, it's also written with a light touch and lots of fascinating anecdotes.