From the bestselling author of A Beautiful Mind, a brilliant new approach to the story of modern economics and to understanding how we got into today's financial mess. As the twenty-first century faces new and ever more daunting economic obstacles, Sylvia Nasar tells the story of how our financial world came to function as it does today, and how a handful of men and women would change the lives of every person on the planet. Economics was not always associated with bankers and excess, or with recessions and bailouts. Economics, as we know it, was born in the nineteenth century when Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew chronicled the destitution in London's slums and wanted to turn money into a force for social good. Man's material fate would be placed in his own hands, rather than left to destiny. The torch would be carried on by everyone from Marx and Engels to Keynes and Friedman, with revolutionary results. Filled with the stories of colourful lives and visions of the characters who shaped modern economics, Grand Pursuit is a fascinating history of the determining force of the past century, and a vital insight into how our world works now. 'A history of economics which is full of flesh, bloom and warmth' The Economist

By:   Sylvia Nasar
Imprint:   Harper Collins
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 197mm,  Width: 197mm,  Spine: 130mm
Weight:   430g
ISBN:  

9781841154565

ISBN 10:   1841154563
Pages:   592
Publication Date:   August 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock at Abbey's Bookshop
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Sylvia Nasar is the author of the bestselling A Beautiful Mind. She is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

'A history of economics which is full of flesh, bloom and warmth!Grand Pursuit deserves a place not only in every economist's study but also on every serious reader's bedside table' The Economist 'Much of Grand Pursuit may be a reminder that as bad as things seem now, they have been worse -- much worse -- and that those difficult times can shed light on what is happening today. Economists have always tried to come up with theories about how to stimulate flaccid economies. The reader finishes Nasar's book wondering what brilliant and quirky thinker may fill in the next chapters of our economic history and come up with an idea that shakes our current economy out of its funk' Los Angeles Times 'A superb writer, fully meeting the standard set by Robert Heilbroner, in his 'The Worldly Philosophers' (1953), for graceful writing on a difficult subject!you can't help becoming engrossed in [her heroes'] lives!The book is a kind of portrait gallery of economic thinkers, each artfully set down in his or her time and place' Wall Street Journal

'A history of economics which is full of flesh, bloom and warmth...GRAND PURSUIT deserves a place not only in every economist's study but also on every serious reader's bedside table' ECONOMIST 'Much of GRAND PURSUIT may be a reminder that as bad as things seem now, they have been worse - much worse - and that those difficult times can shed light on what is happening today. Economists have always tried to come up with theories about how to stimulate flaccid economies. The reader finishes Nasar's book wondering what brilliant and quirky thinker may fill in the next chapters of our economic history and come up with an idea that shakes our current economy out of its funk' LOS ANGELES TIMES 'A superb writer, fully meeting the standard set by Robert Heilbroner, in his THE WORLDLY PHILOSOPHERS (1953), for graceful writing on a difficult subject...you can't help becoming engrossed in [her heroes'] lives...The book is a kind of portrait gallery of economic thinkers, each artfully set down in his or her time and place' WALL STREET JOURNAL