An interesting collection of brief biographies of economists from ancient times to today, describing their accomplishments or major theories in an accessible way and with some effort to put the long arc in context. The selection was pretty fairly done, and each bio/summsry was better than I expected. ( )

Very basic but extremely clearly written. You can read this to your kids at bedtime. ( )

This book is exactly as advertised. A little book on the History of Economics. It takes you from the barter system to the present. You get a general understanding of the many theories throughout the years. ( )

I found this book quite fascinating. it lives up to it's name. It is a kind of sketch of economic history: rather better with modern economic history than with, say ideas behind the economies of ancient Egypt and the ancient middle east civilisations. I found that gap disappointing. It's rather formulaic with an series of short chapters: each beginning with an interesting anecdote to illustrate the main point.....then bringing in some new idea by an economist that revolutionised economic thought at the time. One thing that I found interesting was the constant evolution of economic thinking. As one idea seemed to open up a new way of managing the economy and was put into practice by governments etc, it seemed to carry with it the seeds of it's own demise. As the author, aptly points out, if you are dealing with controlling the flight of rockets....everything is pretty much predictable and obeys well understood laws of physics (actually he doesn't say this but implied it). But when you are dealing with people, outcomes will be anticipated and behaviour will change ...so that the actual outcome may be different to what was expected.
I found the interplay between psychology and economics especially interesting ....especially with modern economics. Also interesting was the economists reliance on their economic models and faith in the markets and on their faith in rational behaviour of people. Both of these pillars of traditional economic theory have been demonstrated to be false. I would recommend this as a great little introduction to economic history. ( )

I expected a little better of this book since it was recommended by the History Book Club. I have already mentioned it on Facebook as a source of a "stupidest thing I will read today" for the sentence "Under capitalism, if you work hard and are really good at your job you make lots of money." I won't say that the entire work is written at that level of obtuseness, but it certainly presents a simplistic view of the world. Each chapter presents a period of history or a set of related economic theories. It appears to be written at an eighth-grade level ( I checked the readability score with Microsoft Word). Not what I expect in a book sold for adult audiences. ( )