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      • Stanley Milgram - Obedience To Authority
      • IP Pavlov - Conditioned Reflexes
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Tom Butler-Bowdon

50 ECONOMICS CLASSICS

50 Economics Classics
Your shortcut to the most important ideas on capitalism, finance, and the global economy
Revised 2022 Edition

by Tom Butler-Bowdon

Silver Medal Winner, 2018 U.S. Axiom Business Book Awards
(Business Reference Category)

Economics drives the modern world and shapes our lives, but few of us feel we have time to engage with the breadth of ideas in the subject. 50 Economics Classics is the smart person's guide to two centuries of discussion of finance, capitalism and the global economy.

​From Adam Smith's 
Wealth of Nations to Thomas Piketty's bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, here are the great reads, seminal ideas and famous texts clarified and illuminated for all.

Table of Contents 
(Titles in green are new chapters in the Revised Edition)
 
Introduction 

1. Liaquat Ahamed - Lords of Finance (2009) 
Fixed ideas in economics can have disastrous results
 
2. Saifedean Ammous - The Bitcoin Standard (2018)
We need a form of money and store of wealth suited to the digital age

3. William Baumol - The Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship (2010)       
Entrepreneurs are the engines of growth and must be valued
                   
4. Gary Becker - Human Capital (1964)     
The most important investment we ever make is in ourselves
 
5. Ha-Joon Chang - 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism (2012)
Many nations succeeded by bucking the rules of orthodox economics
 
6. Diane Coyle - GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History (2014)
How we measure economic output has consequences for people and nations
 
7. Ronald Coase - The Firm, The Market and The Law (1990)
Why firms exist; the role of transaction costs in economic life
 
8. Peter Drucker - Innovation and Entrepreneurship (1985)
Success comes from taking management and ideas seriously
 
9. Niall Ferguson - The Ascent of Money (2008)
Finance is not evil, it built the modern world
 
10. Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Free markets, not government, protect the individual and ensure quality
 
11.  JK Galbraith - The Great Crash, 1929 (1954)
It’s government’s job to stop speculative frenzies ruining the real economy
 
12.  Henry George - Progress and Poverty (1879)
The best and fairest way to ensure opportunity is a tax on land
 
13.  Robert J Gordon - The Rise and Fall of American Growth (2016)
Living standards keep rising, but the greatest gains have already happened
 
14.  Benjamin Graham - The Intelligent Investor (1949)
We grow in wealth through long-term investing, not speculating
 
15.  Friedrich Hayek - The Use of Knowledge in Society (1945)
Societies prosper when they give up planning and control, and allow decentralization of knowledge
 
16. Henry Hazlitt - Economics in One Lesson (1979)
All government economic policies have unintended consequences and can only be assessed over the long-term


17. Albert O. Hirschman - Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970)
Consumers have many options to get what they want
 
18.  Jane Jacobs - The Economy of Cities (1968)
Cities have always been, and always will be, the drivers of wealth
 
19. Stephanie Kelton - The Deficit Myth (2020)
Governments should not, and need not, hold back on their spending to achieve social outcomes


20. John Maynard Keynes - The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)
To achieve social goals like full employment, governments must actively manage the economy
 
21.  Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine (2008)
‘Neoliberal’ economic programs have proved a disaster for many developing countries
 
22.  Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner - Freakonomics (2006)
Economics is not a moral science, more an observation of how incentives work
 
23. Michael Lewis - The Big Short (2011)
Modern finance was meant to minimize risk, but it has only increased dangers
 
24.  Deirdre McCloskey - Bourgeois Equality (2016)
The world became wealthy thanks to an idea: entrepreneurs and merchants are not so bad after all
 
25.  Thomas Malthus - An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)
The world’s finite resources can’t cope with an increasing population
 
26.  Alfred Marshall - Principles of Economics (1890)
To understand people, watch their habits of earning, saving and investing
 
27.  Karl Marx - Capital (1867)
The interests of labor and capital are perennially in conflict
 
28.  Hyman Minsky - Stabilizing An Unstable Economy (1986)
Rather than creating equilibrium, capitalism is inherently unstable
 
29.  Ludwig Von Mises - Human Action (1940)
Economics has laws which no person, society or government can escape
 
30.  Dambisa Moyo - Dead Aid (2010)
Countries grow and get rich by creating industries, not by addiction to aid
 
31. Elinor Ostrom - Governing the Commons (1990)
To stay healthy, common resources like air, water and forests need to be managed in novel ways.
 
32. Thomas Piketty - Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014)
The scales of wealth are tipping towards capital; if inequality widens there will be social upheaval
 
33. Karl Polanyi - The Great Transformation (1944)
​
Markets must serve society, not the other way around
 
34. Michael E Porter - The Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990)
Competition and industry clusters make a rich nation
 
35.  Ayn Rand - Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)
Capitalism is the most moral form of political economy
 
36.  David Ricardo - Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817)
A free-trading world will see each nation fulfil its potential
 
37.  Dani Rodrik - The Globalization Paradox (2011)
Globalization agendas are often floored by national politics
 
38. Murray Rothbard - Anatomy of the State (1965)
The nature of the state is to extend itself, at the expense of citizens


39.  Paul Samuelson - Economics (1948)
A combination of classical and Keynesian ideas creates the best-performing economies
 
40.  EF Schumacher - Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973)
A new economics must arise which takes more account of people than output
 
41.  Joseph Schumpeter - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942)
No form of political economy matches the dynamism of capitalism and its process of ‘creative destruction’
  
42. Amartya Sen - Poverty and Famines (1981)
People starve not because there isn’t enough food, but because economics circumstances suddenly change
 
43.  Robert Shiller - Irrational Exuberance (2000)
Psychology, not fundamental values, drives markets
 
44.  Julian Simon - The Ultimate Resource 2 (1997)
The world will never run out of resources, because it is the human mind that drives advance, not capital or materials
 
45.  Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations (1778)
The wealth of a nation is that of its people, not its government
 
46.  Hernando de Soto - The Mystery of Capital (2003)
Clear property rights are the basis of stability and prosperity
 
47.  Thomas Sowell - Discrimination and Disparities (2018)
Disparity of economic outcomes does not always mean people have been subject to discrimination

 
48.  Richard Thaler - Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015)
How psychology has transformed the economics discipline
 
49.  Thorstein Veblen - Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
The great goal of capitalist life is not to have to work - or to take on the appearance of not needing to
 
50.  Max Weber - The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904)
Culture and religion are the most overlooked ingredients of economic success
 
50 More Classics
 
Chronological List
 
Acknowledgements
 
Credits
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​50 ECONOMICS CLASSICS
Your shortcut to the most important ideas on capitalism, finance, and the global economy
Revised 2022 Edition
5 new chapters + significant updating
Nicholas Brealey Publishing (London & Boston)

Testimonials and Reviews:

"A fascinating and very timely book."
Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of Political Economy, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

“To round up the best of the best is a manifestly good idea, and to have these works presented in a consistently detailed and accurate way makes ‘50 Economics Classics’ something of a modern classic in its own right.”'
E&T magazine

"The synopses in this book are fair, balanced, and about as good an introduction to the broad range of modern economic writing, along with a few classics, as one is likely to find."
Professor James K Galbraith, University of Texas, author of Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know

"Butler-Bowdon's choices are broad, interdisciplinary and compellingly idiosyncratic. His chapters are not simply straight summaries of the chosen works, but thoughtful reflections on why we should care about this or that book and what its relevance is for us today. Butler-Bowdon's renderings are done so well that one might never bother going back to the original! Professional economists, students and general readers alike will find much here to delight in and many new byways to explore.'
Niall Kishtainy, Author of A Little History of Economics

Economics giants such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Milton Friedman feature heavily, but one of the book's big plus points for me is that it has room for more contemporary authors and ideas…the book is a well-written affair by an author obviously in full control of his subject.”
Tom Herbert, Accounting Web

"An incisive, concise, and distilled look at the world of economics that spans 200 years. Major theories and writers are put under scrutiny and critique - Marx, Krugman, Thaler and Keynes to name but a few. Areas and subjects covered include economic freedom, food security, knowledge, globalisation, neoliberalism and 'creative destruction.' This embracing publication is not only a wonderful introduction, but a useful reminder of the subject for seasoned learners."
Len Parkyn, The Teacher (National Union of Teachers UK)

"A good starting point for someone new to economics wanting a general overview. Capturing the essence of a book in 3 pages is a difficult task. Tom Butler-Bowdon is a very well-read person with this rare skill."
Diane Coyle, author of GDP: A brief but affectionate history 

"It's a great achievement and I wish I'd had it when doing A level economics."
Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle 

“Tom’s approach is more thorough, more systematic, more unbiased, more honest than that of many so-called experts, providing a critical asset that most economists lack, one that specialization has driven the academia to neglect: intelligent synthesis.
 Hernan Blejer, economic journalist, Euromonitor, University of Buenos Aires
​

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© COPYRIGHT TOM BUTLER-BOWDON, 2023
​. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
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    • 50 Self-Help Classics >
      • James Allen - As A Man Thinketh
      • Dale Carnegie - How To Win Friends and Influence People
      • Stephen Covey - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
      • Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
      • Benjamin Franklin - Autobiography
      • Louise Hay - You Can Heal Your Life
      • Joseph Murphy - The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
      • Samuel Smiles - Self-Help
      • Teilhard de Chardin - The Phenomenon of Man
    • 50 Success Classics >
      • Claude M Bristol - The Magic of Believing
      • Jim Collins - Good To Great
      • Russell H Conwell - Acres of Diamonds
      • Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich
      • Catherine Ponder - The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity
      • David J Schwartz - The Magic of Thinking Big
      • Wallace Wattles - The Science of Getting Rich
    • 50 Spiritual Classics >
      • Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan
      • Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet
      • Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception
      • Carl Jung - Memories, Dreams, Reflections
      • Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe
      • CS Lewis - The Screwtape Letters
      • Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements
      • 50 More Spiritual Classics
    • 50 Psychology Classics >
      • Eric Berne - Games People Play
      • Isabel Briggs Myers - Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type
      • Louann Brizendine - The Female Brain
      • David D Burns - Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
      • Robert Cialdini - Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
      • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Creativity
      • Albert Ellis - A Guide To Rational Living
      • Milton Erickson - Teaching Tales
      • Erik Erikson - Young Man Luther
      • Hans Eysenck - Dimensions of Personality
      • Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams
      • Malcolm Gladwell - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
      • Carl Jung - The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
      • Alfred Kinsey - Sexuality In The Human Female
      • Abraham Maslow - Motivation and Personality
      • Stanley Milgram - Obedience To Authority
      • IP Pavlov - Conditioned Reflexes
      • Jean Piaget - The Language and Thought of the Child
      • Carl Rogers - On Becoming A Person
      • BF Skinner - Beyond Freedom & Dignity
    • 50 Prosperity Classics >
      • James Allen - The Path to Prosperity
      • Genevieve Behrend - Your Invisible Power
      • Richard Branson - Losing My Virginity
      • Warren Buffett - The Essays of Warren Buffett
      • Rhonda Byrne - The Secret
      • Andrew Carnegie - The Gospel of Wealth
      • Felix Dennis - How To Get Rich
      • Peter Drucker - Innovation and Entrepreneurship
      • Harv Eker - Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
      • Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom
      • Michael E Gerber - The E-Myth Revisited
      • Benjamin Graham - The Intelligent Investor
      • Esther & Jerry Hicks - Ask And It Is Given
      • Conrad Hilton - Be My Guest
      • Joe Karbo - The Lazy Man's Way To Riches
      • Catherine Ponder - Open Your Mind To Prosperity
      • Ayn Rand - Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
      • Donald Trump - The Art of the Deal
      • Max Weber - The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
      • Prosperity Principles
    • 50 Philosophy Classics >
      • Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex
      • Heraclitus - Fragments
      • Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling
      • Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
      • Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Massage
      • John Stuart Mill - On Liberty
      • Montaigne - Essays
      • Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
      • Plato - The Republic
      • Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery
      • John Rawls - A Theory of Justice
      • Jean-Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness
      • Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Black Swan
      • Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations
    • 50 Politics Classics
    • 50 Economics Classics
    • 50 Business Classics
  • Capstone Classics
    • Think and Grow Rich
    • The Science of Getting Rich
    • The Art of War
    • The Prince
    • The Wealth of Nations
    • The Republic
    • The Tao Te Ching
    • Meditations
    • Beyond Good and Evil
    • Origin of Species
    • The Prophet
  • New Writing
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