Is there a cooler discipline right now than economics? Okay, if you answered “yes, John, pretty much every discipline out there” then I can sort of understand. It’s got a reputation for being dry, I’ll agree with that much. Nonetheless, with the recent publication of books like Moneyball and Freakonomics*, it’s starting to find its own niche in the non-fiction bestseller category. And if you want to learn more about it, you would do much, much worse than to find yourself in a class that used this book.
That being said, the #1 issue with this book is price. It’s priced at upwards of $100 depending on your school, really right in that “let’s gouge the college kids and their grant money/trust funds” category of price. Ironically, the book obliquely explains that if grants and parents did not exist, this kind of book would be a lot, lot less expensive. See? You can learn about econ just by reading the price alone. THE BOOK IS THAT VALUABLE.
Seriously though, the book is very well written. Real-world examples abound, there are all kinds of little text break-outs which provide additional context, and while the book as a whole is not math-heavy (as you’d expect since it’s an intro to micro-econ tome) they do go in and explain the necessary math at the end of several chapters. And through it all the professor who put the thing together maintains a pretty sharp sense of humor about him. I’d kind of like to see him write a pop-science book on econ, actually.
I’m not going to lie to you: parts of this book will probably feel like a slog. It’s a textbook after all, a book designed to be a means of gaining understanding rather than entertainment. I do have to say that I read this book as part of an online course and so there was very little out-of-the-book interaction. I could wax on and on about online courses and whether they will ever truly replace the classroom** but I’ll keep this to the work I’m reviewing. The book itself is written well enough that this was not an issue for me. I’m not sure how well that speaks to my instructor but hey, a good book is a good book.
I’m not *quite* sure that I’d recommend reading this on its own without the support structure of someone else who is at least out there and available to walk you through some of the harder-to-get bits. I would love to take a class from the writer of this book, though, and reading his book is the closest one can get to that (assuming he doesn’t have a lecture series at The Great Courses.
*Both of which will reeeeeally likely make it into these reviews. Watch this space! Or that space.
**Quick and dirty verdict: the issue is twofold. One, it’s just a fact that you retain more info when you read something *and* someone steps you through it than if you do either thing alone. It’s all about working to different parts of the brain or something. Also, I’m convinced that the aspect of shuffling off to school, sitting down in a class, pulling out your notebook, and then patiently waiting for the bell to ring places you in the mindset of a person ready to learn. It’s very similar, really, to how for some people putting a suit on in the morning puts them in the mindset of doing Serious Business. Is this a Pavlovian connection? Sure, yes, I’d say so. There’s nothing inherent about the classroom that creates learning that couldn’t be repeated elsewhere. But it’s still a connection that tens of millions of people still make and so it’s pointless right now anyway to pretend that this phenomenon doesn’t exist.
A Book A Day, That's All We Ask 