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    Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius
    Unavailable
    Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius
    Unavailable
    Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius
    Ebook819 pages12 hours

    Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius

    By Sylvia Nasar

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Sylvia Nasar, the author of the phenomenal bestseller A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through the epic story of the making of modern economics, and how it rescued mankind from squalor and deprivation by placing its material fate in its own hands, rather than in Fate.

    Nasar's account begins with Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew observing and publishing the condition of the poor majority in mid 19th century London, the richest and most glittering place in the world. This was a new pursuit. She then describes the efforts of Marx, Engels, Alfred Marshall, Beatrice and Sydney Webb, and Irving Fisher to put those insights into action – with revolutionary consequences for the world.

    From the great John Maynard Keynes to Schumpeter, Hayek, Keynes's disciple Joan Robinson, the influential American economists Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman, and India's Nobel Prize Winner Amartya Sen, she show how the insights of these activist thinkers transformed the world – from one city, London, to the developed nations in Europe and America and now the entire world.

    In Nasar's dramatic account of these discoverers we witness men and women responding to personal crises, world wars, revolutions, economic upheavals, and each others' ideas to turn back Malthus and transform the dismal science into a triumph over mankind's hitherto age-old destiny of misery and early death. This story, unimaginable less than 200 years ago, is a story of trial and error, and ultimately transcendent, rendered here in stunning narrative.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateDec 8, 2011
    ISBN9780007465743
    Author

    Sylvia Nasar

    Sylvia Nasar is the author of the bestselling A Beautiful Mind. She is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

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    Reviews for Grand Pursuit

    4/5

    54 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I KNOW! Surprising title for me, eh? But this was a really interesting book! It tells the story of the creation of the field of economics from its inception but in a way that is easy to understand and a real delight to read. REALLY! I wouldn't lie to you. Now economics is not what I would call my strong suit by any stretch of the imagination but with the state of the economy lately I figured it might behoove me to relearn what I was taught oh so very long ago in college. If this book had been my textbook I might have paid more attention.....Don't be put off by the size of the book, it really reads quickly and Ms. Nasar ties the economic times to famous people of the age. As I read the beginning chapters and her references to Charles Dickens it put a whole new spin on "A Christmas Carol." I had always considered the novella to be a social commentary but if you stop and think a bit it is truly an economic commentary. The two are hand in fist of course but the book does open your eyes to seeing situations in a new light.Economic terms and philosophies are explained in an easy way without condescending to the reader which is a remarkable skill and shows Ms. Nasar's talent as a writer. She makes economics fun - really.
    • 4/5
      In her preface, Nasar describes Grand Pursuit as “the story of an idea that was born in the Golden Age before World War I,” the grand pursuit of “turning economics into an instrument of mastery” that could drive prosperity, rather than the “dismal science” that cautioned against government or even voluntary social intervention. Although she gives a glimmer of the ideas of such founders of classical economics as Adam Smith, Thomas Robert Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, the focus is on their successors from the Victorian Age to present: Marx-Engels, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek. Milton Friedman gets little space, and the great critic of centralized planning seminal in the free-market movement, Ludwig Von Mises, has some scattered mentions. The blurbs of praise inside the cover run the gamut from the far-left Mother Jones and more moderate left The Nation to center-right publications such as the Economist and the Wall Street Journal, promising a balanced view of modern economics. I’d say more “middle-of-the-road.” Nasar tips her hand to her own biases fairly early on, when for instance she claimed that Mother-of-the-Welfare-State Beatrice Webb “showed” that the welfare state could cure poverty and was “more likely to raise than be a drag to economic growth.” (Not claimed or argued but showed.) Nasar’s no fan of the free market, but no fan of Soviet-style central planning either. Her triumphalist narrative and blue skies epilogue can sometimes sound downright Candide-like, and certainly marks her as a champion of the status quo--from reviews seemingly the cause of annoyance to both socialists and libertarians alike who’d challenge her assumptions. I’ve also read complaints in the (few) negative reviews about this being a popular economics book, one not deep enough to merit the attention of an economics major.Well, except how many of us can say that? I took one course in Macroeconomics in college, and have read some books, and some excerpts of the works, of some of the thinkers listed above. As a general reader interested in history, economics and politics, I found the book valuable and fascinating. Especially given Nasar wasn’t shy about giving us the sweep of history as a whole, including literary figures from Jane Austen to Virginia Woof when they tied into the story. Certainly I’d heard of Marx, Keynes and Hayek, and knew something of their lives and ideas, but I’d never known about Beatrice Webb, for instance, who Nasar credits as tremendously important in creating the modern Welfare State. Nobel-prize winner in Economics Robert Solow called Grand Pursuit a “colorful, even exciting series of vignettes involving important protagonists in the history of economic thought.” Well, economic thought between 1850 and 1950, primarily, but I do think the book enormously entertaining and well worth the read.
    • 1/5
      Very disappointing. Almost no explanation of the economic theories and arguments raised by the economists. Almost exclusively, a history of their lives and times. I don't feel that I gained any further understanding of the economic principles at issue. Very disappointing.
    • 4/5
      A decent spread of major characters in the development of modern economic thought, but the later chapters are rather weak and feel somewhat tacked on. Seems a shame that Friedman gets relatively sparse verbiage. Plus the occasional obvious error (even to the layman) sometimes detracted from this otherwise interesting overview.
    • 4/5
      I KNOW! Surprising title for me, eh? But this was a really interesting book! It tells the story of the creation of the field of economics from its inception but in a way that is easy to understand and a real delight to read. REALLY! I wouldn't lie to you. Now economics is not what I would call my strong suit by any stretch of the imagination but with the state of the economy lately I figured it might behoove me to relearn what I was taught oh so very long ago in college. If this book had been my textbook I might have paid more attention.....Don't be put off by the size of the book, it really reads quickly and Ms. Nasar ties the economic times to famous people of the age. As I read the beginning chapters and her references to Charles Dickens it put a whole new spin on "A Christmas Carol." I had always considered the novella to be a social commentary but if you stop and think a bit it is truly an economic commentary. The two are hand in fist of course but the book does open your eyes to seeing situations in a new light.Economic terms and philosophies are explained in an easy way without condescending to the reader which is a remarkable skill and shows Ms. Nasar's talent as a writer. She makes economics fun - really.