Grand Pursuit: A History Of Economic Genius (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
This is a seemingly endless book that describes the lives of the most important figures in the economic panoramic. Some passages of the character's lives are really interesting; and some of them are really dense. The hopeful overall conclusion is that there is hope for a better future for humanity; since there always have been and always will be great characters that care for their fellow human beings. From the vantage of a non-professional, this is an excellent book of biographies of important economists, few widely known. One is Irving Fisher, a Yale microeconomist in the 1910s and 1920s who was also a businessman--he invented the Rolodex Card system of record-keeping. Fisher focused on questions about the growth and decline of businesses, both secularly and cyclically, and on the role of finance in economic instability--his ideas have come back after the 2008-2009 financial collapse. Joseph Schumpeter (University of Vienna and Harvard, died 1950) get much-deserved attention, as does John Maynard Keynes (Cambridge University, died 1946). More recent figures are Paul Samuelson (now deceased) and Amartya Sen, a still-practicing Harvard economist specializing in the economics of social decisions and their consequences. Nasar has an advanced degree in economics and is a credible, thoroughly briefed, biographer of those great men. From the perspective of a professional economist, the book is less successful. It tells us about the personal lives and political philosophies of the economists, but little about how they thought and what their deep contributions were. For example, Marx is billed as an economist, yet his economic analysis is deeply flawed--economists see him as a sociologist; Marshall is a man of the people, concerned about welfare and productivity, yet his contributions to the "science of economics" are scarcely mentioned; Keynes is the dean of the business cycle, yet Schumpeter (also covered) had far deeper insights into the characteristics of business cycles. Those who understand the field of economics won't get much here, and those who don't will feel that they got a lot.But, with both hats on, I highly recommend it.
What do You think about Grand Pursuit: A History Of Economic Genius (2011)?
A little dry, or at least not as engaging as I had hoped. And only a few pages on Friedman.
—marylx
