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MarginalRevolution book forum
OK people, we're going to do an MR book forum on Greg Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Pre-order it, get it July 27. (Guess whose book you can buy it with, for a two-fer discount?) We'll start the first chapter or so about a week after that and I'll discuss the book sequentially.
The New York Times calls this book "the next blockbuster in economics"; here is my column on the book. Here's the book's home page. Arnold Kling has had some very good posts on the book as well.
And yes I will play the role of helpful critic. Keep marginalism in mind. Contrary to what many of you suggested, my view is not that all criticism is worthless. I said "use Google" but that means you are indeed Googling to something by a critic and then reading it. You are reading "critics" on Amazon as well. It remains very likely, however, that the marginal act of criticism isn't worth very much, relative to using Google.
But ah...which act of criticism is the marginal one? Can we be infra-marginal? Here's hoping the world googles to our forthcoming symposium, and perhaps Greg will join in.
I may soon pick a work of fiction as well, though I am less sure that will work. In the meantime, please don't discuss Clark's book in the comments, we'll save that for the future. And I would be curious to hear what kind of pace you could bear for the forum.
If the forum goes well, I'm thinking of doing Keynes's General Theory, chapter by chapter (no, wise guy, that's not the work of fiction!), but first I want to see if there is interest in the forum for an easier book of more general interest.
Addendum: Last I looked Greg's book rose from about #10,000 on Amazon.com to #169 today, and was still rising, so I am glad some of you seem to be interested...
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 20, 2007 at 06:55 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Awesome. If you decide to do fiction books, please do them as a completely separate book forum. I'll have time and interest to do the nonfiction, but not the fiction, and I'd hate to feel an incomplete part of the conversation or experience on the nonfiction track.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous at Jul 20, 2007 7:35:26 AM
Excellent. I just pre-ordered.
Posted by: Rich at Jul 20, 2007 8:11:48 AM
Just a note to UK readers: Release date is 1st September. You'll need to use Amazon marketplace to get it.
So, Tyler: We'll have to wait a little longer for delivery, so could you start a week later?
Posted by: Naadir Jeewa at Jul 20, 2007 8:54:38 AM
Tyler, could we have a live MR discussion about the book in Second Life?
Posted by: Rue Des Quatre Vents at Jul 20, 2007 9:09:55 AM
Does the book really counter "Guns, Germs, and Steel"? From the sounds of
it, "Alms" starts with the period prior to the Industrial Revolution as its
starting point in comparing productive and less-productive societies. "Guns"
asks, why at that point in time were European populations more productive?
And then continues the "why" question back several iterations to the
beginnings of society.
Obviously, I haven't read "Alms" but Tyler's review doesn't necessarily
sound like this book is a counter to "Guns". It sounds like it picks up
the story half-way through (at the start of the IR) and offers further
explanation or some new explanation of why wealth and standar of living
have continued to diverge.
Posted by: Kirk at Jul 20, 2007 9:16:21 AM
What is Second Life? Please enlighten me...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jul 20, 2007 9:23:07 AM
Second Life is an online environment similar to a role playing game in which a lot of people with too much time on their hands make tons of money.
I'm surprised you haven't heard of it; I was sure you'd referred to it on MR. Stodgy professors much older than yourself such as Richard Posner and Charles Nesson have used it for forums and classes.
Posted by: Dan at Jul 20, 2007 9:49:58 AM
Second Life is a virtual world with a thriving economy. It is similar to but the identical to a massively on-line role-playing game. For a look at how a meeting could be run, see here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/player/07/07/11Naone/1.aspx
For some info on what Second Life is see:
http://secondlife.com/whatis/
I'm happy Dan mentioned Richard Posner. I think that session was moderated by Lawrence Lessig. Evidently the Suzanne Vega Second Life concert was worth hearing too.
Posted by: Rue Des Quatre Vents at Jul 20, 2007 9:57:27 AM
I can hardly use a cell phone, how many minutes would it take me to learn the technology well enough to use it?
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jul 20, 2007 9:59:44 AM
wonderful idea, tyler! i'd like the keynes discussion as well.
Posted by: Samson at Jul 20, 2007 10:01:49 AM
If you learn as fast as you read, three shakes of a lamb's tail.
Posted by: Rue Des Quatre Vents at Jul 20, 2007 10:02:24 AM
I concur with Samson; having never really read primary-source Keynes, a guided tour would surely be enlightening.
Posted by: Dan at Jul 20, 2007 10:15:59 AM
Okay- maybe not for your first project, but for your second or third- a work of non-economic history,
or general history which incorporates economic perspectives? I'd nominate either 'The Birth of the Modern
World, 1780-1914' by C. A. Bayly, which strikes me as possibly wrong-headed but stimulating; or an oldie but
a goodie, 'Battle Cry of Freedom', by James A. McPherson, which contains among many other things the best
analysis I've ever come across of the peacetime economy of the antebellum US and a very strong-
and convincing- attack on Fogel and Engerman's 'Time on the Cross'.
Fiction: this is hugely ambitious, but how about a short series of posts, dealing (obviously not chapter by chapter)
with 'War and Peace'? In particular, you could look at just how inaccurate or accurate Tolstoy's views of Napoleon and
and Kutuzov were, and see what microecon theory (or the political science literature dealing with reactions to
'natural disasters') tells us about the burning of Moscow and the starvation of the Grande Armée.
Posted by: Dan Hardie at Jul 20, 2007 10:34:05 AM
Farewell to Alms was available in a prepress pdf on the author's website last year; I found it a very good tour of preindustrial economics. Particularly, you'll have more respect for Malthus given the conditions under which he was writing.
(Tyler, I'd recommend a quick tour through Marshall's Principles. I'm interested in seeing what you think holds up from his work and what doesn't.)
Posted by: cure at Jul 20, 2007 10:51:50 AM
James M. McPherson, not A. Dumb of me.
Not enough for a book seminar, but I'd rather like Prof. Cowen to take a quick look at Hew Strachan's 'Financing the
First World War' (actually a chapter of the first volume of his projected 3-vol history of the conflict).
He's received a huge amount of praise for it, but I suspect that most of the plaudits have come from historians
without a proper econ. hist. background, and I thought that he was taking refuge in a vague prose style a lot of the
time: he did seem to shy away from saying anything definite.
Posted by: Dan Hardie at Jul 20, 2007 10:55:28 AM
I want to re-read Keynes like I want dental surgery without anesthetic. That steaming pile of passive voice is on my "never ever again" list with Manuel Castells and anything ever written by Chomsky.
Pinker's The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, is out in a new paperback edition. So is How Brains Make Up Their Minds by Walter J. Freeman.
I'm just starting Culture Matters but I'd also suggest The Central Liberal Truth by Harrison (there's a great deal to chew on in that book). Heck, why not the Black Swan or Wikinomics?
Posted by: Eric at Jul 20, 2007 11:18:03 AM
Just Pre-ordered: this is going to be fun!
Posted by: Nat at Jul 20, 2007 11:56:51 AM
Pre-ordered. I vote for General Theory and fiction.
Posted by: eriks at Jul 20, 2007 11:59:21 AM
Based on this blog, I just ordered "1491", Tyler's book, this book, and MacQuarrie's Inca book. Coase was right: transaction costs do matter, and my demand for books has increased because Jeff Bezos and the internet have lowered these costs.
Posted by: Shiraz Allidina at Jul 20, 2007 12:10:49 PM
A minor quibble: Although Amazon's "Buy this book with" links look very appealing, they are not a "two-fer discount"; the price is equal to the sum of the two items. Of course, it's easy to be deceived by the offer's context. Call it "faux price discrimination."
Posted by: Trevor Burnham at Jul 20, 2007 12:22:40 PM
Is anyone here familiar with Jude Wanniski's, The Way The World Works.
Posted by: Russ at Jul 20, 2007 1:13:05 PM
I just read the Amazon reviews of Wanniski and I'm going to order it.
Posted by: Eric at Jul 20, 2007 1:24:16 PM
The Wanniski book looks pretty dubious:
http://www.smartmoney.com/aheadofthecurve/index.cfm?story=20050902
Posted by: joeo at Jul 20, 2007 1:32:56 PM
Which comments from the review look dubious.????
Posted by: Russ at Jul 20, 2007 2:02:04 PM
Although I am very interested in reading this book, it is unnecessary to counter the geographic advantage proposed in "Guns, Germs, & Steel" in order for labor quality to be a significant factor in economic success. To be fair, it is also unlikely that geographic advantage is the primary factor. I am forever confounded by the insistence among academics in social sciences that because X theory was a causal factor, then Y theory is disproved. Human events are never so simple as to have a single causal factor, and rarely a primary one.
Posted by: at Jul 20, 2007 2:18:43 PM
