Lester C. Thurow (1938–2016)

I decided to read this book many years ago because it purported to explain how the US economy works, in jargon- free language. In this respect, it lived up to that description. Unfortunately, I found the subject itself dull, and as of years later, I seem to have retained little of the book's contents. Doubtless, this is no fault of the authors.

This book is what it claims to be: an introduction to economics. How does capitalism differ from traditional economic systems? What have prominent economists (Smith, Marx, Keynes) of the past contributed to the present? What are broad areas of agreement and disagreement among economists? What are macro- and micro? What is money? What kinds of things do markets do well and poorly? I confess that I merely skimmed the final section on modern problems, which I gather was appended to the previous show more edition, because it had the aura of being not quite what I was after, and possibly dated (this edition is a decade old). The book served its purpose of providing an overview, and has hopefully prepared me to tackle a small stack of books that delve more deeply.

(read 1 Feb 2009) show less

The authors touch on the three main economic thinkers in history--Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. However, the intent of the work is to make economics accessible for the layperson and in this aim they largely succeed. The discussion on Keynes is the weakest although this may be the most important of the lot. Smith applies less and less in the contemporary mixed-economies of the day and Marx has in many ways been discredited. The discussion and relevance should be stronger but show more the authors move on to a further discussion of general economics, their main focus. show less

An OK introductory text, but nothing special. I probably could have gotten the same information from Wikipedia. Although, in this case, the authors were nice enough to organize it for me...