Thursday, November 5, 2020

Review of The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner

This review was written by Eugene Kernes

Book can be found in:
Genre = Economics
Intriguing Connections = 1) Learning Economics: Basic to Advanced

Elaborate Description

The author's prose reads like poetry. The discussions about the particular economist, transition extremely well from who the person was to what the person thought. A particular implication is made that the personality of the economist deeply impacted the not only the thought process of the economist's theories, but also what those theories were and became.

Some chapters are mostly dedicated to a particular economist. Few chapters are divided up between many different economists and some background information about the general theories. The book has many important lessons such as the economic theories, but the most important is bringing to light some economist that have impacted economics but are not heard of as much as others.

Through out most of the book, the author expounds theories in what they are. Accepting them all. Only sometimes does the author show disagreement with the theories and doing a great job at explaining how the economists disagreed among themselves. It would have been better if the author had dedicated a section of each chapter to explaining what it wrong with the theories presented, or at least were the theories fail as those lessons help create an understanding of what is still needed to be learned and figured out.

The diversity of economists that the author presents is expansive, but it is also lacking. It is understandable that not all economists can fit into a short book, and the author did a great job selecting different types of economic theories to present, but all the economists are Western, more specifically European and North American. It would have added a lot of value to find a few or at least 1 economist from Asia. The West is not the only section of the planet that has a great history and economic thought, Asia's history and culture impacted the way their economists analyzed the world in different ways then the West's did.


Book Details

Edition ISBN:  9780684862149
Pages to read:   315
Publication:     1999
1st Edition:      1953
Format:            Paperback

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    5
Content          5
Overall           5