This badly named but invaluable book is vintage Economist style, method, and theory. If it is not what its title leads one to believe, this is pardonable on the grounds that it is perhaps better than that.
Essential Economics is comprised of a lively and informative essay by Matthew Bishop that plays upon the oft-cited designation of economics as ‘the dismal’ science, followed by brief encyclopedia-style entries written with the Economist’s trademark brevity of style and commitment to ideological restraint within a market framework.
Bishop’s ‘The Joy of Economics’ (!) should be required reading for high school and college students. This delightful essay explains almost as much about what (free-market) economists *don’t* say about reality as about what they affirm. These ten careful pages constitute a virtual primer on economic discussion in broad historical outline and the state of the question today.
Entries from A (‘Absolute advantage’) to Z (‘Zero-sum game’) then fill out this handbook-sized volume with intelligent summary and effective cross-referencing.
Brilliant, concise, unapologetic, sized for the desk, shelf or briefcase, Essential Economics is worth its modest price, which should prove no ‘barrier to entry’ to dismal scientists and lay enthusiasts in virtually any ‘optimal currency area’.
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