The Worldly Philosophers: a broad survey of economic thought

by Idéfix Fri Jul 27, 2012 2:18 pm

I just read Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers. He wrote the book in 1953 when the Cold War was just getting started. The book does a great job of summarizing the ideas of great economic thinkers throughout history. He starts off with Adam Smith, and covers, among others, Malthus, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Keynes and Schumpeter. This is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in economics and, in Mitt Romney's words, "how the economy works." He does a great job of chronicling not just the ideas of the great economic thinkers, but also their lives and the profound influence that the sociopolitical environment of their times had on the ideas of each of those thinkers.

This book is one of the largest-selling economics books of all time; according to Wikipedia, Paul Samuelson's textbook is the only one that beats this book in terms of number of copies sold. I bought a paperback edition of the book in an old book shop in a small but not insignificant capital city of a small and nearly insignificant state in India.

by Impedimenta Fri Jul 27, 2012 2:37 pm

i am reading the gone girl. what? you are now going to judge me by the book i read? fine. you are not the person i thought you were. now, give me back all my flowers.

by Idéfix Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:16 pm

Impedimenta wrote:i am reading the gone girl. what? you are now going to judge me by the book i read? fine. you are not the person i thought you were. now, give me back all my flowers.

I need links so I can judge you. Please provide links and copy-paste some content.

by Guest Sat Jul 28, 2012 7:28 am

panini press wrote:I bought a paperback edition of the book in an old book shop in a small but not insignificant capital city of a small and nearly insignificant state in India.

bhubaneswar? interesting you went searching in old book shops in the days of crossword and landmark.

by Idéfix Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:47 am

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
panini press wrote:I bought a paperback edition of the book in an old book shop in a small but not insignificant capital city of a small and nearly insignificant state in India.
bhubaneswar? interesting you went searching in old book shops in the days of crossword and landmark.

And Amazon. When I returned with a stash of five new books from that shop, my wife said I could have bought them cheaper on Amazon. I told her that I wanted to contribute to keeping the 40-year-old shop alive.

by Guest Sun Jul 29, 2012 1:13 am

lol, i agree with your wife. you are nuts. though i hardly read (books i mean), i order through flipkart when i do (if available in its store).

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The Worldly Philosophers: a broad survey of economic thought

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