The Ordinary Business of Life: A History of Economics from the Ancient World to the Twenty-First Century

by Roger E. Backhouse

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691096260
• ISBN13: 9780691096261
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A Must Read

"The Ordinary Business of Life" is an absolute must read for anyone and everyone interested in business and how it works, money and how it works, commerce and how it works. It covers the history of commerce as we know it today from virtually the beginning of civilization. I read this when it was first published and I have re-read, and bought new copies ever since. I learn something new every time I open it. I especially recommend this as a gift for anyone newly graduated from high school or entering college. It's knowledge that withstands the ages and will last more than a life time.

A textbook style history of socio-political and economic ideas

The book is not written in any fashion of keeping the readers attention. the reviewer who gave it 3/5 stars citing this reason seems to have a narrow predicate upon how he judges a book. infact that is NOT the purpose of the book, as most wholely informative books. It's nature is to examine the historical cases in which some form of economics was present or affected by someone, from philosophers, politicians, theologians, to historians and economists. If you have interest in the history of economic thought, or WHERE people like keynes got basis of his "inventions" from, then this is where to go. I'm partway through the book and still reading. It's a thick book so don't expect it to have alot of filler-comments by the author with jokes or glorification of topics. On the other hand you will learn

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.