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A review by davidewright_philosophy
היסטוריה של הכלכלה לצעירים מכל הגילים by Niall Kishtainy
4.0
This is a difficult book to do well--each chapter is very brief and the author aims to illuminate some part of a subject that many general readers (the target audience of a book like this) find intensely boring: economics--and not even that--the history of economics. But I think the author writes with fluency and expertise about his subjects. Even though I was familiar with essentially all of the ideas and historical figures mentioned, the author included various biographical details that were new to me and provided little nuggets of insight regarding the origin and social context surrounding a particular idea or economist.
The book is not comprehensive enough to really serve as a textbook, but is great for someone who is perhaps mildly interested in history and economics but has hitherto been too intimidated to take the plunge into a formal economics text. Probably my favorite part of the book is how Kishtainy uses anecdotes and historical examples to to introduce the reader to many modern concepts still relevant to economic thinking ranging from comparative advantage to negative externalities to rent seeking to Pareto efficiency to Gary Becker's economic theory of crime and the different theories of economic development in modern nations struggling to gain economic stability.
Similar to the other titles in the 'Little History' series, each chapter is about 6 pages long, meaning that the author has to get in and out of a given topic fairly quickly. For the reader, this means that if you aren't interested in a particular idea or economist, then that is fine and it will be over soon. While reading I was continually impressed at how much Kishtainy was able to get done in such a short space--usually starting with an attention grabbing anecdote, introducing some economist and explaining their big idea, and often including some standard objections or concerns about the idea in question and how the idea has panned out (or not) over time. That's a lot to do in six pages across forty chapters! I should also add that, in general, the discussion was ideologically balanced, though I'm sure some partisans may feel that their people didn't get their due.
Overall, this book was a lot of fun, though I would advise most readers to read the book just a little at a time. Because of the unusual format, reading it in longer stretches made some of the ideas run together and it can be a bit choppy to finish one idea and then start up again so quickly with a new chapter and new set of ideas. Still, the degree of difficulty in authoring this kind of book is high and the author did well in writing an engaging and thoughtful text on an important discipline that has a profound impact on us all.
The book is not comprehensive enough to really serve as a textbook, but is great for someone who is perhaps mildly interested in history and economics but has hitherto been too intimidated to take the plunge into a formal economics text. Probably my favorite part of the book is how Kishtainy uses anecdotes and historical examples to to introduce the reader to many modern concepts still relevant to economic thinking ranging from comparative advantage to negative externalities to rent seeking to Pareto efficiency to Gary Becker's economic theory of crime and the different theories of economic development in modern nations struggling to gain economic stability.
Similar to the other titles in the 'Little History' series, each chapter is about 6 pages long, meaning that the author has to get in and out of a given topic fairly quickly. For the reader, this means that if you aren't interested in a particular idea or economist, then that is fine and it will be over soon. While reading I was continually impressed at how much Kishtainy was able to get done in such a short space--usually starting with an attention grabbing anecdote, introducing some economist and explaining their big idea, and often including some standard objections or concerns about the idea in question and how the idea has panned out (or not) over time. That's a lot to do in six pages across forty chapters! I should also add that, in general, the discussion was ideologically balanced, though I'm sure some partisans may feel that their people didn't get their due.
Overall, this book was a lot of fun, though I would advise most readers to read the book just a little at a time. Because of the unusual format, reading it in longer stretches made some of the ideas run together and it can be a bit choppy to finish one idea and then start up again so quickly with a new chapter and new set of ideas. Still, the degree of difficulty in authoring this kind of book is high and the author did well in writing an engaging and thoughtful text on an important discipline that has a profound impact on us all.