A better than average lay persons economics guide, however it loses a star for repeating several events to emphasise an argument, that are found in similar books making a similar argument; Piper Alpha and Three Mile Island from "Outliers" are one of many examples. The book reads like an extended essay, with the narrative following from chapter to chapter, and as such the final concluding chapter was rather short and felt like a summary anyone who read the previous chapter could have written - i expected the author to perhaps offer a more insightful critical analysis.Overall, you know what you are getting with these books - some good chapters, some patchy chapters and lots of material you are familiar with once you have read a few of them. Still, they are perfect beech, bedtime or garden reading as each chapter is fairly concise and can be read in isolation. Harford is one of the best pop-writers of economics in the market today, and does a good job educating his reader about the importance of experiments in complex situations where the outcome is hard/impossible to predict with theory. Harford also challenges our outlook on failure, and applies Darwin quite good to government policies and business practices. My personal favorite was his critique of the expert opinion, The author does stress his points a bit too much, and could have shortened the book by one third, but in sum a great read.
What do You think about Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure (2011)?
Great, unusual thinking from a British economist.
—Sky
