Book Description

In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests --so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice --was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the rise of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contrast to the assumption of a sharp break that is a common feature of both Marxian and Weberian thinking. Among the insights presented here is the ironical finding that capitalism was originally supposed to accomplish exactly what was soon denounced as its worst feature: the repression of the passions in favor of the "harmless," if one-dimensional, interests of commercial life. To portray this lengthy ideological change as an endogenous process, Hirschman draws on the writings of a large number of thinkers, including Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and Adam Smith.

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Reviews (4)

Good bang for the buck.
My first reading of this material occurred in college as a requirement for a European History course in my second year. The 124-page text is readable in large type with wide margins for notations. In the Introduction (not counted in the text total pages) the author writes that his work, "could be considerably expanded, qualified, bent, and adorned." I appreciated that he did not add unnecessary pages.

The author's objective in writing was to reconstruct how capitalism went from being the sin of avarice to a counterweight for other, less acceptable sins. The work is an interesting history of an idea that is today accepted as the best alternative available for people. I found it amusing that capitalism actually passed through a phase in history where people had to sell it. How that sales campaign was designed and conducted is interesting reading.

The book details some of the advantages of capitalism for workers. While massing people in cities close to factories and raw materials helps owners, it also helps the workers by giving them the opportunity to protest and riot against a government that devalues the currency (apparently a frequent problem in days of yore) or factory owners that otherwise exploit their workers too badly. These advantages are not generally associated with the tenement districts of the late 19th century industrial revolution in America, yet the history of social progress always includes incidents of large-scale violence.

One idea that the book stumbles with is the marginal utility of wealth. Since greed seems to never be sated, it is incorrectly assumed that the pursuit of economic gain has no declining marginal utility. In fact, currency and wealth have no marginal utility at all, but can be transformed into any form of consumption as desired by its owner, and those goods and services have declining marginal utility. This is an important point. The early proponents of capitalism argued that greed would "harness" the destructive and diabolical passions of mankind. In fact, it really has had no effect on them at all, as wealth has become just an innocuous tool available for use or misuse as determined by its owner.

It was necessary to make capitalism something good in order to squelch early critics who opposed low wages and inhumane working conditions on moral grounds. Before then, the Invisible Hand just couldn't compete.

good insights in historical development on idea capitalism
I much enjoyed reading this book, and can unreservedly recommend it to anyone interested in political economy and the history of economics (which grew out of the original 'political economy' into a separate branch of social science). Prof. Hirschman does a very good job in pulling together the various scattered ideas in modern history (so say from around 17th century onward) on the ideology and basic motivations for capitalism. This is a very interesting study on possible political motivations in a time that economic development through capitalism in Europe slowly started to take hold (large parts of Europe still remained a largely agrarian-based economy until end 19th/early 20th century). Even though this brought enormous political and social upheavals, the ideas on capitalism still largely were of a brave new world variety, and understandingly so. The observation that the desire for wealth does not seem to diminish as levels of wealth increase (an exception to the law of dimishing marginal utility) led a number of political philosophers to the exciting and hopeful idea that capitalism would channel human destructive passion or act as a 'counterweight' to other less socially desirable behaviour (of which the 17/18th centuries in Europe saw its share as well). As it turned out, this basic optimistic idea of course needed some heavy qualifications; e.g. to avoid abuses of power (such as the inevetable necessity for a strong role of government in capitalism, e.g. as enforcer of fair and equitable competition and alleviate market failures; or that economic interests do not necessarily stop any war). Nevertheless, the ideas on positive effects of capitalism on human behavior still stands in contemporary discussions as well, if only often implicitly. I liked his remark on how ironic, in historical context, the argument is that the strong focus on capitalism in modern society has led to impoverishment and alienation in the human experience. The idea in capitalism as described by its early protagonists was precisely to counteract or channel the human 'passions' that so far had not led to much constuctive behavior. As Prof. Hirschmann notes, a historical awarenesss of such arguments may not bring any clearer answers today but will certainly help to lift the level of discussion.

A history of the arguments for capitalist rationality
It's a bit of a miscategorization that this book is usually filed under "Economics." It's more about social and intellectual history. Hirschman traces social support for economic individualism as stemming from support for rational, predictable "interest" to counter irrational, unpredictable "passions." It's the old battle of Apollonian versus Dionysian, but it's very novel to see it played out in something as this-worldly as debates about political economy.

Hirschman's history of "interest" is similar to Weber's history of "capitalist rationalism," although Hirschman's attributed causal mechanisms are broader than Weber's: Hirschman says general desire to improve upon human nature, rather than specific Protestant religious concerns, was the justification for capitalist rationality. (However, taking Hirschman's tack, we cannot explain why capitalism elicited more support in some countries than in others.)

This is an excellent history of the concept of the "invisible hand," the idea that the pursuit of private gain can have socially salubrious effects. If you know about "the fable of the bees," you know a little bit about this concept, but Hirschman chronicles its history at a much deeper level.

A romp!
In this delicious wafer of a book, Hirschman describes the process by which a Renaissance-era desire to discount the classical "heroic ideal" in order to account for man "as he really is" in formulating an original and, ... "Machiavellian" statecraft (to be promulgated without respect for a new *spiritual* ethic for the individual) gave rise to a re-examination of the role and motive force of the mortal Passions. Considering the works of such as Vico, Mandeville, and Smith, Hirschman excitedly argues the case for this novel "state" project: the idea that the act of "harnessing" the Passions (e.g., avarice and "cupidity") would serve to parlay the sins of envy, resentment, and petty spite into a value-neutral drive (i.e., "interest") to acquire great *personal* material wealth, which (and this is the rub) would serve not only to break the monopoly of the church over the affairs of men, but to bring about a residual and necessary *collective* prosperity. Behold the Invisible Hand! (Then read your Tocqueville and Marx for 19th-century perspectives on the United States and Britain, respectively.) ... Read more

Book Description

This book challenges the widely accepted notion that globalization encourages economic convergence--and, by extension, cultural homogenization--across national borders. A systematic comparison of organizational change in Argentina, South Korea, and Spain since 1950 finds that global competition forces countries to exploit their distinctive strengths, resulting in unique development trajectories.

Analyzing the social, political, and economic conditions underpinning the rise of various organizational forms, Guillén shows that business groups, small enterprises, and foreign multinationals play different economic roles depending on a country's path to development. Business groups thrive when there is foreign-trade and investment protectionism and are best suited to undertake large-scale, capital-intensive activities such as automobile assembly and construction. Their growth and diversification come at the expense of smaller firms and foreign multinationals. In contrast, small and medium enterprises are best fitted to compete in knowledge-intensive activities such as component manufacturing and branded consumer goods. They prosper in the absence of restrictions on export-oriented multinationals.

The book ends on an optimistic note by presenting evidence that it is possible--though not easy--for countries to break through the glass ceiling separating poor from rich. It concludes that globalization encourages economic diversity and that democracy is the form of government best suited to deal with globalization's contingencies. Against those who contend that the transition to markets must come before the transition to ballots, Guillén argues that democratization can and should precede economic modernization. This is applied economic sociology at its best--broad, topical, full of interesting political implications, and critical of the conventional wisdom. ... Read more

Book Description

In some of Western culture's earliest writings, Hesiod defined the basic economic problem as one of scarce resources, a view still held by most economists. Diocletian tried to save the falling Roman Empire with wage and price fixes--a strategy that has not gone entirely out of style. And just as they did in the late nineteenth century, thinkers trained in physics renovated economic inquiry in the late twentieth century. Taking us from Homer to the frontiers of game theory, this book presents an engrossing history of economics, what Alfred Marshall called "the study of mankind in the ordinary business of life."

While some regard economics as a modern invention, Roger Backhouse shows that economic ideas were influential even in antiquity--and that the origins of contemporary economic thought can be traced back to the ancients. He reveals the genesis of what we have come to think of as economic theory and shows the remarkable but seldom explored impact of economics, natural science, and philosophy on one another. Along the way, he introduces the fascinating characters who have thought about money and markets, including theologians, philosophers, politicians, lawyers, and poets as well as economists themselves. We learn how some of history's most influential concepts arose from specific times and places: from the Stoic notion of natural law to the mercantilism that rose with the European nation-state; from postwar development economics to the recent experimental and statistical economics made possible by affluence and powerful computers.

Vividly written and unprecedented in its integration of ancient and modern economic history, this book is the best history of economics--and among the finest intellectual histories--to be published since Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers. It proves that economics has been anything but "the dismal science." ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Wonderful combination!
wonderful combination of history, philosophy, biographies, economics. I rivals Heilbroner in getting my attention and imagination. From Greek economics as getting the most out of your "household" to current issues with understanding Hayek, with explantions of Adam Smith and Karl Marx on the way.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The good news about The Ordinary Business of Life is that it's a wide-ranging history of economic thought from Ancient Greek thinkers to the rational expectations theorists of the late 20th century. Backhouse doesn't idealize his subjects: he scolds modern economists for formulating abstract mathematical models that have little application to problems in the real world.

The bad news is that the book is totally lacking in color or personality. Aiming at comprehensive coverage, Backhouse plods from thinker to thinker and school to school. Giants like Smith or Keynes get only 6 or 7 pages of text; lesser thinkers get only a paragraph or two. The effect is like reading a series of encyclopedia articles.

Non-economist readers looking for an introduction to the history of economics would be better off starting with a book like Robert Heilbroner's classic The Worldly Philosophers. That way they'll be inspired to read some more. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Wonderful reading
This is book that one needs to purchase if you are interested in the guilded age and one of its smoothest operators. Rising from humble roots Gould camer to dominate the american railroad and finance businesses. Launching many famous raids on wall street, he teamed up with Fisk to try and corner the Gold market.

Jay Gould is a classic american. A trader who was born and worked in a tannery and as an surveyor as a young man he rose to fame and infame. An amazing story, worth the read!

A Valentine for Jay Gould
In the "Life and Legend of Jay Gould," historian Maury Klein seeks to resurrect the image of the archetypal -- but now largely forgotten -- early American industrialist.

The names Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan are familiar to nearly everyone, and in this 497-page biography Klein makes a convincing case that Jay Gould belongs in that pantheon of early American business giants. From his early maneuvers (which Klein claims permanently undermined his reputation) in fighting for control of the Erie Railroad and an attempt to corner the gold market, to his Herculean efforts to build and maintain a vast transportation and communications empire in the face of brutal competition and economic and political chaos, Gould emerges as a true pioneer in American corporate finance. Moreover, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, Jay Gould was the personification of the so-called "robber baron"; the man and the myth were consummate.

Yet, for all of its promise, this book is a huge disappointment. Klein is a classically trained historian and accomplished professional academic, yet this book reads as if it were composed by a fawning amateur. A project that began as an effort to "set the record straight," ultimately degenerates into a frustratingly air-brushed portrait of a very complex and capable man. Rather than a balanced and objective review of Gould's character and business acumen, the book takes on the form of a giddy valentine. Seemingly every move Gould makes is judged by Klein as "brilliant, masterful and unexpected," while his long list of formidable rivals are portrayed as bumbling morons. For example, after Gould ascended to a leadership position in the Union Pacific railroad, he moved to thwart the ruinous rate wars in transcontinental shipping that had erupted with the Pacific Mail steamship company, the Union Pacific's sole competitor in that market at that time. Shortly thereafter the Panama Railroad, the critical nexus upon which all of Pacific Mail's business depended, was acquired by another speculator and the transit contract with Pacific Mail abrogated. Klein describes Gould's actions in acquiring Pacific Mail and in getting out of the Panama railroad jam in glowing terms, but not a word is said about how someone with his supposed perspicacity could leave such a obviously vulnerable flank exposed in the first place.

Also, the author almost totally neglects Gould's private life. Early in the book Klein confidently pronounces that "Two concerns dominated the rest of Gould's life, business and devotion to family." Yet, from that point forward, nary a word is spoken about Gould's relationship with his wife and family -- or specifically about his relationship with the son whose incapable hands the family fortune would be left to and squandered. In comparison to Ron Chernow's and Jean Strause's treatment of the private lives of John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, respectively, in recent biographies, Klein's performance in this regard is particularly disappointing.

In closing, two things are clear after reading "The Life and Legend of Jay Gould": 1) Jay Gould was a giant of American business, easily on par with Rockefeller and Carnegie; and 2) the definitive one-volume biography of his amazing life has yet to be written.

A WELL DOCUMENTED HISTORY ON THE AMERICAN RAILROAD
This book gives a complete description of what it took to develop the American railroads to what it has become. What the author also tries to do is to fight some of the negative comments made by other authors and the press which were not warranted. This book goes into the necessary research to prove them wrong! Each chapter starts with about three quotes from other books or the press and then they are dealt with accordingly. One can also learn a great deal about how the politics of the day operated with its friends, bribery etc. However, I find that the book could have been about half the size and that 300-400 pages would have done just a good job without too much of excess material. This book might be more suited for railroad buffs rather than investors and speculators.

a book which separates fiction from fact
Jay Gould is remembered as the worst of the 19th century "Robber Barons" - a destroyer of companies - yet as Maury Klein so ably details, this reputation was almost wholly fabricated by the media and bears little resemblance to a man obsessed with building a transportation and communications empire. Klein's book is more than about Jay Gould, it's about the vast gulf separating all-too-common media generated myths and the truth.

a very good read, very well-researched, not always objective
Klein's in-depth Biography is a fascinating account of the life of businessman Jay Gould. Although accurate, Klein's analysis is too kind and almost invariably forgiving to the highly contrversial actions of this complex figure. I recommend this book very strongly! ... Read more

Book Description

An economic history of Britain since 1700, in three volumes by thirty-nine eminent historians and economists, this book will succeed the first edition of "Floud and McCloskey" (published in 1981) as the leading textbook on its subject. The text has a firm economic basis, but emphasizes the historical context and chronology and is written in straightforward and jargon-free English. Volume 1 covers the period 1700-1860, that of Britain's rise to relative economic supremacy. Volume 2 discusses the period 1860-1939, that of the height of British economic power and of painful readjustment after 1914. Volume 3 considers the period since 1939, that of relative economic decline and of increasing involvement with the European Community. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (20)

A C lassic for All Times
Weber's "Protestant Ethic" was originally published in 1904-1905 and later in a second, revised edition (1920). This edition is the second edition, and the translator is Talcott Parsons.
In "The Protestant Ethic" Weber famously attempts to explain how the spirit of modern rational capitalism emerged; and he essentially argues that an important part in this process was played by what he termed ascetic protestantism or different types of Protestantism that were activistic and ascetic (most famously Calvinism).
Ascetic Protestantism energized businessmen and workers, and valorized a new type of capitalism: rational capitalism which is much more methodical and dynamic in nature than the type of capitalism that existed in Europe in the 1500s ("traditional capitalism"). Today rational capitalism has conquered society and turned it into an iron cage (to use Parsons' famous translation of two words in German that are more accurately - and less imaginatively - translated as "steelhard casing").
"The Protestant Ethic" is by far the most famous sociological study and is unsurpassed in theoretical boldness and creativity. Parsons said that he found it as exciting to read as a detective novel. Most of us have to struggle quite a bit with it - but it is definitely worth it!

Not a determinist: someone who pays attention to culture...
The main point in Weber's *The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism* is that the Protestant ethic helped to shape values favorable to the birth of capitalism. Despite that, the author isn't a cultural determinist because he takes care to point out that values help to shape an outcome, but don't produce it for certain.

This book is quite interesting, and includes lots of interesting observations regarding Weber's main premise, despite not being overly long. For instance, the author says that due to the fact that Protestant ethic viewed hard work as a duty and looked down on excesive luxuries, Protestants were indirectly encouraged to save almost all the money they earnt, thus increasing the funds available for the capitalist process. Of course, there are many more examples that contribute to give weight to Weber's argument, but to know more you will need to read *The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism* ...

Weber analyses some data at his disposal, and that makes some chapters slightly less engaging. Notwithstanding that, this book is likely to be worth your time and your money. To start with, you will learn quite a few interesting facts you probably were unaware of before. Secondly, and in a more frivolous vein, you will finally know what everybody is talking about when they mention directly or indirectly this book from time to time :)

All in all, I recommend this book especially to those interested in Sociology or Cultural Studies, but also to curious people who want to know more about the influence of culture in different processes. Enjoy it !

Belen Alcat

The Essence Of National Liberalism...
courtesy of America's great technocracy tectonician.

The theoretical legacy of Max Weber -- namely, sociology as an independent science only dubiously dependent upon either economics or philosophy -- is a task which one is not highly encouraged to pick up in the present day, but the use of Weber recommended by Pierre Bourdieu (as a form of cold comfort surpassing Marx in his cultural materialism) may have involved too obscure a camera for the import of this book relative to extant social theory to be properly appreciated.Perhaps there is even a tonic more readily administered than recent disputations of Weber's famed religio-economic history: which has it that the cultural norms of Protestantism (denial of self-gratification in pursuit of a spiritual ideal) are responsible for the rise of the modern entrepreneural economy, perhaps all too securely.In fact, perhaps the architect of Weimar's Caesarist exceutive branch ought to be trusted with relatively little in this respect: that is to say, there should be some fact by virtue of which his work is available to us as an unstable amalgam permitting of virtuous appropriation.

Might this be the new "availability" of the former standard translation by Talcott Parsons?Indeed it might: Parsons was not only the dean of American sociologists (and how), he was actually a fantastically acute observer of "Lakatosian" dynamics in the history of ideas, and the problematic character of the Weberian conceptual scheme was unlikely to have passed him by.If we compare this version to George Schwab's translation of *The Concept of Politics* by Carl Schmitt (once explicitly claimed to be the "legitimate heir" of Weber by Habermas) the relative lack of excitement is palpable, and perhaps tangible too: Parsons was actually rather fond of "cages of rationality", and in all seriousness there may be no very good reason to consider "cylindricized" elements of meaning employed in goal-directed behavior all that ironclad.Kudos to Routledge for providing a durable reprint of the Simon & Schuster version, even with the screams of Anthony Giddens.

One of the most important books in social science
As it is one of the most important and influential masterpieces in the history of the social science, if you can understand the analytical methods used in this book, the rest is few.Since even the details are interesting, I stress the structure of this book.
The first part is the proposal of the question.Found on several statistical analysis, the following problem is arisen; why merchants and manufactures were willing to be protestant, which has the much severer attitude to desires in the world than Catholic?
The reason is the estimation of the job.Their preference is bound to their social situation in the Middle.This is the fundamental leading discipline of Weber.
The second part is the results of such Protestantism.They willingly entered them, which obligate their work as sacred.Then, what happened as results?The main influence is brought by the predetermined dogma, which means that the fatal of people has already been determined before their birth.It makes people disinterruptedly anxious and stress, because nothing to do is useful for the salvation in this world.Its psychology became the engine for the world to be free from the magic.
His existential analysis of Protestantism attracts readers even now and we applause it, but in his eyes their psychology was bound by their social situations.His analysis seems to stress the psychological change at the second stage to have believed in them, but he shows the importance of the motivation at the first stage to have entered into them.
This overview may make clear the composition of his analysis.However, maybe, almost all readers will forget this framework in the face of his analysis' seriosity.

Historically Significant
My spin is that Weber's work is helpful in that so many writers reference him that you need to know what he said in order to comprehend the point they're making. Having said that, I think Weber has some validity, but his sociological explanation of how socieites fuction is lacking.

He does not equate capitalism with greed. He explicitly states that and goes on to define a capitalistic economic action as "one which rests on the expectation of profit by the utilization of opportunities for exchange, that is on (formally) peaceful chances of profit."

Weber contends that "business leaders and owners of capital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labor, and even more the higher technically and commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises are overwhemingly Protestant." He goes on to discuss how the teachings of Calvinism bring this about. He talks about stewards on earth having heaven as an ultimate goal. This is a classic, thought provoking book. ... Read more

Book Description

About two hundred years ago, largely as a result of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, free trade achieved an intellectual status unrivaled by any other doctrine in the field of economics. What accounts for the success of free trade against then prevailing mercantilist doctrines? And how well has free trade withstood various theoretical attacks that have challenged it since Adam Smith's time? In this readable intellectual history, Douglas Irwin explains how the idea of free trade has endured against the tide of the abundant criticisms that have been leveled against it from the ancient world and Adam Smith's day to the present. An accessible, nontechnical look at one of the most important concepts in the field of economics, Against the Tide will allow the reader to put the ever new guises of protectionist thinking into the context of the past and discover why the idea of free trade has so successfully prevailed over time.

Irwin traces the origins of the free trade doctrine from premercantilist times up to Adam Smith and the classical economists. In lucid and careful terms he shows how Smith's compelling arguments in favor of free trade overthrew mercantilist views that domestic industries should be protected from import competition. Once a presumption about the economic benefits of free trade was established, various objections to free trade arose in the form of major arguments for protectionism, such as those relating to the terms of trade, infant industries, increasing returns, wage distortions, income distribution, unemployment, and strategic trade policy. Discussing the contentious historical controversies surrounding each of these arguments, Irwin reveals the serious analytical and practical weaknesses of each, and in the process shows why free trade remains among the most durable and robust propositions that economics has to offer for the conduct of economic policy. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Great book - shoddy reviewers
Fantastic analysis of international free trade and the coming of age of economic globalization. Irwin is a diamond in the rough when it comes to economic author. He writes in such a way that is fairly easy to understand, all the while not comprimising the quality of the material. Granted, any previous knowledge of Economics is obviously beneficial to the reader, but in no way an absolute must.

Second, Mr. Preston Enright above seems to oppose corporate subsidies and welfare. Well, Mr Enright, so do the most staunch defenders of free-trade and capitalism: libertarians. I would not so much call myself a Libertarian but, like yourself, am also ardently opposed to corporate welfare, as it places an unwarranted burden on taxpayers and forces them to involuntarily support a cause, whereas they should only support the firm with their purchases from that corporation. Corporate welfare is, indeed, a rotten policy enacted but liberals and conservatives alike that, just as other forms of subsidies and welfare, create an unhealthy and unwarranted dependency on Washington (or wherever the largesse may originate), artificially lower prices, discourages innovation and efficiency, and ultimately harms the taxpayer and the consumer. Preston Enright is correct that this type of 'free trade' (not free to the mass of those who should benefit: the consumer) is only beneficial to the management and executives. Although, I'm guessing by his scattered and fiery writing style that he would be opposed to the free market, welfare or no welfare.

An informed discussion of free trade
Economics is one of those subjects on which everyone has an opinion but few have much knowledge. Free trade, in particular, suffers from this opinion/knowledge gap. Reviewer Enright provides a good demonstration of this affliction. Had he taken the time to read the entire book, rather than just skimming the last few pages looking for some commentary on the politicization of free trade, Enright might have learned something about the benefits of free trade.

Irwin's text provides an excellent overview of how economic thinking has over the years come to accept and promote free trade. Unfortunately, today's free trade debate is typically not framed by such informed discussion, but rather is shaped by the protectionist rantings of critics like Enright.

free trade is a myth
Free trade is great when you're rich and powerful enough to ram it down the throat of other nations. The multinationals, who benefit from massive subsidies (aeronautics, computers, metallurgy, you name it) are more than happy to have members of the bought priesthood of academia distill fantasies about the joys of the alleged "free market." Not a word in this book about the public subsidies that become private profits, with a huge military and growing prison-industrial-complex for the millions of people who are superfluous to the plans being made (undemocratically, of course) in Geneva and Bonn. Corporate tyranny and its servants are destroying the environment, labor protections, the public sphere, and cultural diversity. Goebbels would be impressed.

Clearly explains value of foreign trade on world economies.
Occasionally, we are contacted by business people who are not as yet convinced of the importance of international trade on foreign economies and the future of their company. They still think of exporting as an option that they can put aside until "things slow down a bit" and they have more time. We suggest to them that they read this publication from start to finish. It gives them an exciting new outlook on exporting. In fact, several of them start investigating foreign markets almost immediately after finishing the book. Although "academic" at times, it is very well written. We recommend it for serious exporters and especially for those who are still pondering the need for their company to introduce their products and services into world markets.

I chose this book as a required reading for my seminar.
I like this book because it is very interesting and informative. I began reading it for pleasure, but by the time I was half way finished, I was sure of its serious nature and had decided to adopt it as a required reading in the seminar that I teach on the economic impact of globalization. The author succeeds in presenting the right mix of theory and history with sufficient analysis. It is well researched and very well organized. It should prove as interesting to the general reader as it is informative for the academics. However, its treatment of classical economists is far superior to the section dealing with contemporary writeres on free trade. Hopefully, in the second edition the author will remedy this shortcomeing. ... Read more

Book Description

Although abundantly endowed with oil, diamonds, and other naturalresources, the African nation of Angola has suffered decades of militaryconflict, economic decline, and human misery. Tony HodgesÍs incisive case studyshows that it is AngolaÍs very wealth that has brought the country to itscurrent wretched condition. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Tony Hodges comes clean
Tony Hodges has finally seen the light regarding Angola. A known MPLA sympathiser, his book shows that there is no right or wrong in Angola. Both the MPLA and UNITA are fighting a 30 year civil war for power. Angola's natural resources provide the monetary resources to continue the war.

Hodges does an excellent job in describing Angola's vast natural resources, the allocation of those resources, and the fraud and corruption associated with the resources. His charts and tables are of particular value to an Angolan scholar.

He also details how UNITA thrives by continuing to hold some diamond mining areas and how they export the stones for funds to oil their military machine.

However, Hodges best contribution is his explanation of how the MPLA government spends billions on defense while the Angolan people starve. Much of the money spent lines the pockets of MPLA generals, and politicians.

My question would be if the MPLA regime is so corrupt would a UNITA victory be more disastrous? ... Read more

Book Description

American society today is shaped not nearly as much by vast open spaces as it is by vast, bureaucratic organizations. Over half the working population toils away at enterprises with 500 or more employees--up from zero percent in 1800. Is this institutional immensity the logical outcome of technological forces in an all-efficient market, as some have argued? In this book, the first organizational history of nineteenth-century America, Yale sociologist Charles Perrow says no. He shows that there was nothing inevitable about the surge in corporate size and power by century's end. Critics railed against the nationalizing of the economy, against corporations' monopoly powers, political subversion, environmental destruction, and "wage slavery." How did a nation committed to individual freedom, family firms, public goods, and decentralized power become transformed in one century?

Bountiful resources, a mass market, and the industrial revolution gave entrepreneurs broad scope. In Europe, the state and the church kept private organizations small and required consideration of the public good. In America, the courts and business-steeped legislators removed regulatory constraints over the century, centralizing industry and privatizing the railroads. Despite resistance, the corporate form became the model for the next century. Bureaucratic structure spread to government and the nonprofits. Writing in the tradition of Max Weber, Perrow concludes that the driving force of our history is not technology, politics, or culture, but large, bureaucratic organizations.

Perrow, the author of award-winning books on organizations, employs his witty, trenchant, and graceful style here to maximum effect. Colorful vignettes abound: today's headlines echo past battles for unchecked organizational freedom; socially responsible alternatives that were tried are explored along with the historical contingencies that sent us down one road rather than another. No other book takes the role of organizations in America's development as seriously. The resultant insights presage a new historical genre.

Book Description

This book examines the nature of economic explanation. The author introduces current thinking in the philosophy of science and reviews the literature on methodology. He looks at the status of welfare economics, and also provides a series of case studies of leading economic controversies, showing how they may be illuminated by paying attention to questions of methodology. A final chapter draws the strands together and gives the author's view of what is wrong with modern economics. This book is a revised and updated edition of a classic work on the methodology of economics. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Classic and a Benchmark
This old and very short book on methodology enables novices to enter a philosophocal debate that is fragmented and decentralised. The book uses simple language and tries to educate not impress. Together with Alan Chalmers Mark Blaug is the best starting point for any student. However, it stops in the 1980s and therefore cuts off the debate at a critical point of time.

Time to move on from Lakatos
The first edition of this book in 1980 established Blaug as a leading influence in this field, especially in his insistence on the importance of the testability or falsifiability of economic theories.

The first part of the book is a clearly written introduction to the modern philosophy of science. Popper is identified as the pivotal figure between the old positivism and the new heterodoxy of Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend. Unfortunately he is still depicted as a "falsificationist" rather than a critical rationalist, a serious mistake in the first edition which might well have been corrected. Hands and Caldwell have subsequently made that step so perhaps Blaug will fix this in the second revised edition. Lakatos may have been the major influence in this matter of misunderstanding Popper, in any case the time has surely come to move on with the assistance of Popper's theory of metaphysical research programs (which are subjected to critical appraisal) rather than the theory of "untouchable" hard cores that was the legacy of Lakatos.

Blaug may be ready to make a decisive step in this area. Recently, meditating on the outcome of the second Greek Islands conference on methodology, he wrote "I have come slowly and extremely reluctantly to the view that they [the Austrians] are right and that we have all been wrong [on Walrasian general equilibrium]". This concession to the Austrians is a major shift for Blaug and this may enable him to take the next step and perceive the overlap between the Austrian assumptions and the major elements of Popper's program. There include realism, non-determinism, the flux of time, methodological individualism and the uncertainty of knowledge

The second part treats the history of economic methodology. This provides an opportunity to rubbish the modern Austrians for their a priori heuristic postulates (this is the old, or rather the younger, Blaug speaking). There is a chapter on falsificationism, and various other "isms" including operationalism, Friedman's instrumentalism and Samuelson's descriptivism. Unfortunately the treatment of instrumentalism and descriptivism (or conventionalism) falls far short of that which is offered in Boland's The Foundations of Economic Method (1982)

The heart and soul of the book should be the third part which is a methodological appraisal of various aspects of the neoclassical research program. As C Wright Mills pointed out, discussion of methodology in isolation from actual work in progress is unlikely to be fruitful, so this part of the book should stand as a test (a possible falsification) of the value of Blaug's methodological apparatus. It might have been even more helpful to include two of his own special areas of interest - education and the arts, in this section, but perhaps this work is not a part of the neoclassical research program.

The fourth part is a short commentary on what we have now learned about economics with advice on falsificationism, applied econometrics and the best way forward.

It's the handbook of methodology for undergraduate students
It's a great book to introduce undergraduate students on economic method topics. Mark Blaug first provides an overall vision of philosophy of science, then comments the method of the economists of the XIXth and XXth century, and finally in the third part he shows the discussion on certain topics such as theory of the firm, human capital capital firm, etc, excellent to start a course-conclusion paper. It's great! ... Read more

Book Description

How are we to understand the politics of international monetary relations since the end of World War II? Exploiting recently declassified documents from both the United States and Europe and employing economic analysis and international relations theory, Francis Gavin offers a compelling reassessment of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates and dollar-gold convertibility.

Gavin demonstrates that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Bretton Woods was a highly politicized system that was prone to crisis and required constant intervention and controls to continue functioning. More important, postwar monetary relations were not a salve to political tensions, as is often contended. In fact, the politicization of the global payments system allowed nations to use monetary coercion to achieve political and security ends, causing deep conflicts within the Western Alliance. For the first time, Gavin reveals how these rifts dramatically affected U.S. political and military strategy during a dangerous period of the Cold War. ... Read more

Book Description

Following Frederick Jackson Turner's lead, most economic historians assume the West and its people were shaped by economic determinism. This study proposes a different path. The federal government, Malone claims, opened the frontier before waves of settlers arrived by constructing a network of roads and making improvements to rivers and harbors. The book begins by analyzing federal transportation expenditures from 1800 to 1860 and then moves on to look at early federal improvement programs and their effects on determining the direction of settlement in the New West. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Classic
Attempting to put numbers on past economic activity is a deeply fraught exercise, as the author freely admits.

That being said, this is a book full of useful information and striking estimates. I know of no better place to get a genuine feel for the economic history of the last millennia, but particularly the last two centuries. There is something to startle or surprise anyone within these pages. A necessary edition to the library of anyone seriously interested in history.

a good book
This book is seemingly a culmination of the painstaking works taken by Angus Maddison for decades. As I liked his previous works such as the Phases of Capitalist Development, so I like this book very much. Of course, the book contains many 'guesstimations' that are unacceptable to today's economists' rigor. This is more so when the author ventures into almost two millenia before 1820, for which he did relatively little work previously. But even here the book apparently provides reasonable figures synthesizing existing evidences with a lucid interpretation, providing illuminating starting points for future studies. ... Read more

Book Description

Embarrassed billionaires tried to keep a lid on this story, but it cried out to be told: how America's greatest comic-book company was driven to the brink of insolvency by warring tycoons and rescued from the abyss by two obscure but wily entrepreneurs.

In the late 1980s, financier Ronald Perelman, worth billions and riding high after his hostile takeover of the cosmetics firm Revlon, bought Marvel Entertainment–legendary creator of Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and other superheroes–and he had big plans.He not only began churning out more comic books, he also acquired sports cards and other subsidiaries, impressing Wall Street so much that after he took the company public, Marvel’s market value ballooned to over $3 billion.

Perelman took advantage of the company’s inflated valuation by selling junk bonds, and personally pocketing nearly $500 million. Meanwhile, Marvel’s bank debt rose to more than $600 million. And then came the collapse of the comic-book and trading-card markets.

Enter rival corporate raider, Carl Icahn, who sank a fortune into Marvel’s bonds in an effort to wrest away control of Marvel–and to beat Perelman at his own game.As the competing tycoons went head-to-head, Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad, two entrepreneurs who ran Toy Biz, a company that depended on Marvel superheroes, realized that their fate hung in the balance. They soon put in motion plans to take control themselves.

Bunkered in The Townhouse, his high-security Manhattan corporate headquarters, Perelman had Marvel declare bankruptcy.Icahn, an avid poker player, had to figure out if his foe was bluffing; the Toy Biz entrepreneurs needed to find a way to save the company they loved from ruin; and a team of killer lawyers representing the banks was faced with recouping their colossal debt.Thus, in United States Bankruptcy Court, began the comic war–as ferocious and outlandish as any of Marvel’s tales of good vs. evil.

Combining meticulous investigative reporting with entertaining storytelling, Comic Wars exposes the actions and motives of two Goliath-style corporate raiders, two innovative Davids, and some of the world’s most prominent banks.It is the rollicking true tale of a unique Wall Street showdown, of Marvel’s surprising emergence from the ashes of bankruptcy, and of its triumphant reinvention as the producer of such hit Hollywood movies as X-Men and Spider-Man. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

There were few winners in this battle
This book almost reads like a 400 page script for a daytime soap like As The World Turns or One Life to Live in that it's full of unexpected twists and turns in the story.That a lot of rich people in fancy suits battled over the future of a company and they kind of end up destroying themselves in the process and that ultimately the company was saved and is run by people who are more interested in doing good business for all, but a lot of good people lost their jobs in the battle itself.What this book does not cover is the stories of the people who had been with Marvel for over thrity years and had lost their jobs during the bankruptcy process.They were writers,artists, and editors who were told one day to clean out their desks and that was it.They have never worked again at Marvel or at any other company, and their loss was also a loss for comics in general.They were among the losses that Marvel went through as Avi Arad and his partners both at Toy Biz and in Hollywood saved the company.It is not clear just what role if any Stan Lee played in trying to save Marvel, many of the people who lost their jobs had known him for a long time.Wither he did anything to try and save their jobs is not clear.During the whole time that Marvel was going through this, Stan had been living in Hollywood and had been out of touch with the comics publishing end of the company for quite a few years.I think he was there at the Hollywood end of things trying to get people to invest in Marvel and do whatever they could to save the company, but that was about it.I don't think he was able in any way to save people's jobs from being fired. Some have accused him of not doing anything to help people he had known for thrity years, but there is no evidence of this at all. Today, Marvel is still around and they are being very successful at the movie studios, but their comic book publishing has never recovered, and it's really only a matter of time before Marvel will cease that all together and just stay with other forms of media to get their characters out to the general public.

Hardball Business Tale Colorfully Told
At first glance, Dan Raviv's book might seem irrelevant to readers of intrigue novels. Despite the flashy title and cool cover, reading about two rich businessmen fighting for the control of a publishing company might not seem all that exciting.

It is exciting.

Like in any theatrical drama, Raviv begins his book with an annotated list of players. Most names will be unknowns outside of the industry. Stan Lee is here, as you might expect, but so is Isaac Perlmutter and numerous lesser executives. Their parts in this drama are crucial and understanding who they are from the beginning will help keep the plot clear.

This is, in some ways, a history of Marvel Comics, beginning in 1939 with Captain America, the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch. Raviv walks us through Marvel's troubled times under various owners.

We get the play-by-play debacle hindering the X-Men and Spiderman from the silver screen, and the intense personalities behind it all.

The cynicism of loyal comic readers is told, as Marvel aimed for the financial speculator and played games with collectors (remember the many covers and bags of certain Spiderman issues?). When the quality of the Marvel Universe stunk up the magazine racks in the 1990s, it seemed if Spiderman would weave his last web.

Letters, trial notes and other details fill in this adventurous tale of the struggle for power, money and egos. We find out how Spiderman was finally able to make the bigtime.

I fully recommend "Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled over the Marvel Comics Empire--And Both Lost" by Dan Raviv.

Anthony Trendl

Business for Comic Book Fans
Comic Wars is a sprightly, fast-paced book about the bankruptcy and hostile takeover troubles Marvel Comics faced in the mid-1990's, when billionaire financiers Ronald O. Perelman and Carl Icahn engaged in a tug-of-war for control of the company that almost killed it and eventually left it in the control of neither man.Instead, toy company owner Ike Perlmutter scooped them both.Comic Wars's main strengths are propulsive narration that makes it a fast and compelling read, and the simplicity with which author Dan Raviv explains the hideous complexities of the bankruptcy process.This is a book about business that a business dilettante can read and understand.Its descriptions of the way junk bond financing and overextension got Marvel into trouble and of the various types of deals the bankruptcy parties thought of to get it out of trouble contain useful general business knowledge.Its combination of simple narration and simple explanations made it an educational experience that I also enjoyed.

On the other side of the ledger, Raviv borrows from comic books a habit of making his characters larger than life and designating them good guys or bad guys.The good guy in Raviv's version of this true story is Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter, and we know we are supposed to identify best with him because, unlike the other major parties, Raviv always refers to Ike by his first name.Meanwhile, Perelman and Icahn are referred to by their last names, except in chapter titles, which refer to them by the names of Marvel Comics villains Dr. Doom and The Vulture.The good guy versus bad guy idea makes this a simple book to read, and that makes the business education go down more easily, but it undoubtedly grossly oversimplifies the true situation.Late in the book we see that good old Ike, who's worth half a billion dollars, won't spring twelve hundred bucks for an office Christmas party to improve Marvel's wounded morale -- he's no super-hero, and I imagine Perelman and Icahn aren't quite super-villains, either.

I still recommend the book.It's fun to read, and that's something it'd be hard to say about anything else that contains as much useful information on high finance and business bankruptcy.Given our present economy, it behooves us all to learn a bit about both.

Money well spent
Here's the great thing about this book: it's a fast read.The bad thing: it's not easy to follow.I found it tough to keep up with the cast of characters, and felt that the author is a bit predisposed to pointing out everyone's Jewish faith, religious observances etc.As a result, many of the characters blended together.A lot of focus on the heritage of the characters here, almost to the point of distraction.Bottom line though, as a shareholder, this book made a hell of a lot more sense to me than did the quarterly and annual reports.In all, a good book about a sad story that is well priced.The author has done his homework.I would have loved about another 100 pages of detail here and there though to help with the transitions.And again, a little less focus on the faith of everyone involved.

Jumps around
This book would have been better with a better editor. It is a complex amount of happenings, and I found myself forgetting who was who. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Opening a Window to Fixed Income Securities of Eras Past
This exceptionally written, highly readable volume, written by a true pioneer in bond trading and fixed income research, covers interest rate trends and lending practices spanning over four millennia of economic history. Despite the paucity of data prior to the Industrial Revolution, the book manages to present a highly detailed analysis of money markets and borrowing practices in major economies. A History of Interest Rates seeks to provide a helicopter perspective of interest rate movements, avoiding anecdotal indications if possible and applying analytical tools such as yield curves and decennial averaging of the available data.

Homer asserts that "the free market long-term rates of interest for any industrial nation, properly charted, provide a sort of fever chart of the economic and political health of that nation." Given the unprecedented rise in asset price volatility and the emergence of extraordinary inflation rates during twentieth-century episodes of economic distress--occurrences which were nearly imponderable during the nineteenth century--it would seem that we are now living in times of eschatological excess, which is actually one of the understated themes in this book's third edition.

This book should be part of the library of every investment analyst, together with such finance classics as Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis and Lefevre's Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.

One of the ten books every speculator should read.
Financial assets grow in value with the passage of time. For debt, we call this "interest", and for equity, we call it "yield". Homer's book is the superbly recorded history of this phenomenon. Perhaps its greatest value is that when you hear or read a new theory, you can assess its validity by comparing the theory's implications with the historical evidence. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first full-scale study of the history of money, not merely of coinage, to have been written for medieval Europe. The book is not limited to one country, or to any one period or theme, but extracts the most important elements for the historian across the broadest possible canvas. Its scope extends from the mining of precious metals on the one hand, to banking, including the use of cheques and bills of exchange, on the other. Chapters are arranged chronologically, rather than regionally or thematically, and offer a detailed picture of the many and changing roles played by money, in all its forms, in all parts of Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Thus money is seen as having differing significances for differing parts of individual societies. The book shows money moving and changing as a result of war and trade and other political, economic and ecclesiastical activities without regard for national barriers or the supposed separation between 'East' and 'West'. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Heavy reading for numismatists, historians, and ... DMs.
Peter Spufford's highly detailed history of Medieval European money is an invaluable reference book for numismatists who want to know deep details of the coins they study, and for historians interested in the impact of trade, plunder, metal mining, and industry on the Medieval economy.

Strangely, what I found it most useful for was as an aid to running fantasy role-playing games (e.g., Dungeons & Dragons). Spufford explains the impact of inflation in Medieval economies caused by the rapid influx of ready money (from the silver mines of Bohemia, for example), which would closely parallel the impact of a treasure hoard brought to a civilized community by fantasy adventurers.

Likewise, Spufford deals with the shortage of precious metals and their impact on coinage: debasement, depreciation, and depression, as "white" (silver) money gradually becomes "black" (base metal) coinage. DMs could readily reduce the impact of inflation in their campaigns by having adventurers discover a hoard of debased coinage with only a limited amount of "good" gold and silver coins. Rather than assuming that "treasure types" in monster hoards and lairs are good coinage all of the time, even a cursory study of "Money and Its Uses" should give the DM ideas for tossing in debased coinage.

Debased coins in hoards could, in turn, become adventure hooks if the player characters actually bother to study what they have found: why, for example are the coins of King Poobah IV mostly lead mixed with a small amount of silver when his father, King Poobah III, issued sound coins of good silver? Did something happen to cut off the silver supply? Is there perhaps an orc-infested silver mine somewhere nearby? As Spufford indicates -- primarily in relation to gold -- enemy action could off one state from its supply of precious metals in some other part of the world, enriching the enemy at the expense of the suddenly deprived state. In a fantasy campaign, the enemy might well be orcs, a dragon, or a lich instead of Turks or Mongols. On the other hand, a third state might well profit by trading with the first state's enemy. (In The Forgotten Realms Campaign setting, imagine Calimshan suddenly boycotting Waterdeep to trade exclusively with Amn, and you have a parallel with the commercial rivalry of, for example, Venice and Genoa trying to snare trade with the Muslim East.) ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first major study of post-Civil War banking panics in almost a century.The author has constructed for the first time estimates of bank closures and their incidence in each of the five separate banking disturbances.The author also reevaluates the role of the New York Clearing House in forestalling several panics and explains why it failed to do so in 1893 and 1907, concluding that structural defects of the National Banking Act were not the primary cause of the panics. ... Read more

Book Description

This survey synthesizes the economic, social, cultural and political history of the Atlantic slave trade. It details the current scholarly knowledge of forced African migration and compares this knowledge to popular beliefs. The book examines the 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade, covering the West and East African experiences and the American colonies and republics that obtained slaves from Africa, outlining common features and local variations.It discusses the slave trade's economics, politics, demographic impact, and cultural implications in Africa and America, places the slave trade in the context of world trade, and examines its role in the growing relationship among Asia, Africa, Europe and America. ... Read more

Book Description

With its familiar white classical figures against a pale-blue background,Wedgwood hasbeen one of the most recognizable brand names in the world for more than twohundredyears—the epitome of quality and luxury—and the Enlightenment’s most remarkablesuccess story.

Born into a family of struggling potters, Josiah Wedgwood amassed a fortunethat, at hisdeath in 1795, was valued at the equivalent of $3.4 billion in today’s dollarsand helmedan empire that stretched from England to Russia to the United States. As amember of thefamous Lunar Society, whose members included James Watt, Joseph Priestley, andErasmus Darwin, he combined rationality with bold experimentation,revolutionizing thebusiness model of his time with a series of innovations that have continued tothisday:
• Organizing skilled labor in one of the world’s earliest factories
• Encouraging employee loyalty by offering long-term contracts that includedhealthinsurance and pension plans
• Changing the very notion of shopping by utilizing showrooms and travelingsalesmen

The story of how phenomenal wealth affected the lives of a family and of theturbulentpolitical climate that threatened their very livelihood, this vivid andcompelling portraitof a pioneer of commercial culture is sure to be a hit with loyal collectors andthebusiness market alike. ... Read more