The 100 Best Economics Books of All Time

1. The Wealth of Nations By Adam Smith | Used Price: 80% Off Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was recognized as a landmark of human thought upon its publication in 1776. As the first scientific argument for the principles of political economy, it is the point of departure for all subsequent economic thought. Smith's theories of capital accumulation, growth, and ... More »

2. Capital By Karl Marx | Used Price: 70% Off A landmark work in the understanding of capitalism, bourgeois society and the economics of class conflict, Karl Marx's Capital is translated by Ben Fowkes with an introduction by Ernest Mandel in Penguin Classics. One of the most notorious works of modern times, as well as one ... More »

3. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money By John Maynard Keynes | Used Price: 90% Off In 1936 Keynes published the most provocative book written by any economist of his generation. Arguments about the book continued until his death in 1946 and still continue today. This new edition, published 70 years after the original, features a new introduction by Paul Krugman which discusses the ... More »

4. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time By Karl Polanyi | Used Price: 50% Off In Polanyi's classic work of economic history and sociology, he examines societal changes since the Industrial Revolution and expertly explains the inadequacies of the free market. Published in 1944, it is as relevant as today as ever, with Harvard Professor Stephen Walt recommending it in his Top 10 ... More »

5. Globalization and Its Discontents By Joseph Stiglitz | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 This powerful, unsettling book gives us a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of global financial institutions by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. When it was first published, this national bestseller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize ... More »

6. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy By Joseph A. Schumpeter | 60% Off In this definitive third and final edition (1950) of his masterwork, Joseph A. Schumpeter introduced the world to the concept of â€œcreative destruction,â€Â which forever altered how global economics is approached and perceived. Now featuring a new introduction by Schumpeter biographer Thomas K. McCraw, Capitalism, Socialism and ... More »

7. The Theory of the Leisure Class By Thorstein Veblen In his scathing The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen produced a landmark study of affluent American society that exposes, with brilliant ruthlessness, the habits of production and waste that link invidious business tactics and barbaric social behavior. Veblen's analysis of the evolutionary process sees greed as ... More »

8. The Affluent Society By John Kenneth Galbraith | 80% Off John Kenneth Galbraith's classic investigation of private wealth and public poverty in postwar America Â With customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith gets at the heart of what economic security means in The Affluent Society. Warning against individual and societal complacence about economic inequity, ... More »

9. Individualism and Economic Order By Friedrich Hayek In this collection of writings, Nobel laureate Friedrich A. Hayek discusses topics from moral philosophy and the methods of the social sciences to economic theory as different aspects of the same central issue: free markets versus socialist planned economies. First published in the 1930s and 40s, these essays ... More »

10. Development as Freedom By Amartya Sen | Used Price: 80% Off By the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Economics,Â Â an essential andÂ Â paradigm-altering framework for understanding economic development--for both rich and poor--in the twenty-first century. Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of ... More »

11. John Maynard Keynes By Hyman Minsky | Used Price: 80% Off â€œToday, Mr. Minsky's view [of economics] is more relevant than ever.â€Â- The New York Times â€œIndeed, the Minsky moment has become a fashionable catch phrase on Wall Street.â€Â-The Wall Street Journal John Maynard Keynes offers a timely reconsideration of the work of the revered economics icon. Hyman Minsky ... More »

12. The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger By Richard G. Wilkinson; Kate Pickett | 60% Off It is a well-established fact that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. The Spirit Level, based on thirty years of research, takes this truth a step further. One common factor links the healthiest and happiest societies: the degree ... More »

13. The Worldly Philosophers By Robert L. Heilbroner | 80% Off The bestselling classic that examines the history of economic thought from Adam Smith to Karl Marxâ€”â€œall the economic lore most general readers conceivably could want to know, served up with a flourishâ€Â (The New York Times).The Worldly Philosophers not only enables us to see more deeply ... More »

14. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism By Ha-Joon Chang | Used Price: 80% Off â€œLucid, deeply informed, and enlivened with striking illustrations, this penetrating study could be entitled â€˜Economics in the Real World.â€™ Chang reveals the yawning gap between standard doctrines concerning economic development and what really has taken place from the origins of the industrial revolution until today. His incisive analysis ... More »

15. Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes By Paul Bairoch | Used Price: 70% Off Paul Bairoch sets the record straight on twenty commonly held myths about economic history. Among these are that free trade and population growth have historically led to periods of economic growth; that a move away from free trade caused the Great Depression; and that colonial powers in the ... More »

16. Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises By Charles P. Kindleberger Selected as one of the best investment books of all time by the Financial Times, Manias, Panics and Crashes puts the turbulence of the financial world in perspective. Here is aÂ vivid and entertaining account of how reckless decisions and a poor handling of money have led to financial ... More »

17. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments For Capitalism Before Its Triumph By Albert O. Hirschman In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests--so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice--was assigned the role of containing the unruly ... More »

18. Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity By Robert Pollin | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 In the past twenty-five years the free-market neoliberal model has been hailed as a panacea for economic ills in both the advanced economies and the developing world. Pollin dissects this model as it has been implemented in the US during the Clinton and Bush administrations under Greenspanâ€™s Chairmanship ... More »

19. Economic Philosophy By Joan Robinson | Used Price: 60% Off "Economics has always been partly a vehicle" for the ruling ideology of each period as well as partly a method of scientific investigation. It limps along with one foot in untested hypotheses and the other in untestable slogans. Here our task is to sort out as ... More »

20. Economics By Paul Krugman; Robin Wells | 60% Off When it comes to explaining current economic conditions, there is no economist readers trust more than New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.Â Term after term, Krugman is earning that same level of trust in the classroom, with more and more instructors introducing students to the ... More »

21. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy By Gar Alperovitz | Used Price: 80% Off "Be prepared for a mind-opening experience."-The Christian Century"Highly readable; excellent for students. . . . A tonic and eye-opener for anyone who wants a politics that works."-Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University"America Beyond Capitalism comes at a critical time in our history-when ... More »

23. Capital in the Twenty-First Century By Thomas Piketty What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to ... More »

24. Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala By Stephen Schlesinger; Stephen Kinzer Bitter Fruit is a comprehensive and insightful account of the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. First published in 1982, this book has become a classic, a textbook case of the relationship between the United States and the Third ... More »

25. Mad Money: When Markets Outgrow Governments By Susan Strange | Used Price: 90% Off The world's financial system is crazier and even more out of control than it was ten years ago. Mad Money analyzes the erratic nature of change and innovation in financial business in recent years and discusses the weak points--political as well as economic and technical--of a system driven ... More »

26. Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization By Alice Amsden | Used Price: 80% Off South Korea has been quietly growing into a major economic force that is even challenging some Japanese industries. This timely book examines South Korean growth as an example of "late industrialization," a process in which a nation's industries learn from earlier innovator nations, rather than innovate themselves. ... More »

27. The Economic Emergence of Women By Barbara Bergmann | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 This new edition of a classic feminist book explains how one of thegreat historical revolutions--the ongoing movement toward equalitybetween the sexes--has come about. Its origins are to found, not inchanging ideas, but in the economic developments that have made women'slabor too valuable to be spent exclusively in domestic ... More »

28. Ecological Economics By Herman E. Daly; Joshua Farley In its first edition, this book helped to define the emerging field of ecological economics. This new edition surveys the field today. It incorporates all of the latest research findings and grounds economic inquiry in a more robust understanding of human needs and behavior. Humans and ecological systems, ... More »

30. Principles of Political Economy: and Chapters on Socialism By John Stuart Mill | Used Price: 60% Off This volume unites, for the first time, Books IV and V of Mill's great treatise on political economy with his fragmentary Chapters on Socialism. It shows him applying his classical economic theory to policy questions of lasting concern: the desirability of sustained growth of national wealth ... More »

31. Governing the Commons By Elinor Ostrom The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After ... More »

32. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975 By Chalmers Johnson | Used Price: 80% Off The focus of this book is on the Japanese economic bureaucracy, particularly on the famous Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), as the leading state actor in the economy. Although MITI was not the only important agent affecting the economy, nor was the state as a whole ... More »

33. The Cost Disease: Why Computers Get Cheaper and Health Care Doesn't By William J. Baumol | Used Price: 70% Off The exploding cost of health care in the United States is a source of widespread alarm. Similarly, the upward spiral of college tuition fees is cause for serious concern. In this concise and illuminating book, well-known economist William Baumol explores the causes of these seemingly intractable problems and ... More »

34. Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850 By Prasannan Parthasarathi | 60% Off Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialized from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ... More »

35. Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil By Peter B. Evans | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 "This is the most important recent book on economic development written from a Left political perspective. . . . Rare has been the industrial revolution which has equitably benefitted the generation which produced that revolution. What Evans has accomplished in this book is a brilliant analysis of the ... More »

36. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea By Mark Blyth | Used Price: 50% Off Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We ... More »

37. The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism By Daniel Bell | Used Price: 70% Off With a new afterword by the author, this classic analysis of Western liberal capitalist society contends that capitalismâ€”and the culture it createsâ€”harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratificationâ€”a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their ... More »

38. Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System By Barry Eichengreen | Used Price: 50% Off First published more than a decade ago, Globalizing Capital remains an indispensable part of the economic literature today. Written by renowned economist Barry Eichengreen, this classic book emphasizes the importance of the international monetary system for understanding the international economy. Brief and lucid, Globalizing ... More »

40. Accumulation and Power: Economic History of the United States By Richard B. DuBoff | Used Price: 60% Off "This book represents a high-quality, successful attempt to forge the beginnings of a new paradigm for American economic history, one that does not assume that the market solves all problems in the best of all possible ways. In spite of the fact that the book is frontier research, ... More »

41. Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD By Angus Maddison This book seeks to identify the forces which explain how and why some parts of the world have grown rich and others have lagged behind. Encompassing 2000 years of history, Part 1begins with the Roman Empire and explores the key factors that have influenced economic development in Africa, ... More »

42. The Origins of Nonliberal Capitalism: Germany and Japan in Comparison By Wolfgang Streeck; Kozo Yamamura | 50% Off Why was the rise of capitalism in Germany and Japan associated not with liberal institutions and democratic politics, but rather with statist controls and authoritarian rule? A stellar group of international scholars addresses this classic issue in political development. In The Origins of Nonliberal Capitalism, German sociologists and ... More »

43. The Last Phase in Transformation By Michal Kalecki This volume includes six essays, the first dating from 1935 and the last from 1967, by one of the outstanding economists of our time. The economics presented in this volume is political economy worthy of the name: a discipline which shows us the social relations, in particular the ... More »

44. The Essential Gunnar Myrdal By Gunnar Myrdal | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 Nobel Prize winner Gunnar Myrdal is best known for his book An American Dilemma, a classic study of Americaâ€™s racial problems that was chosen as one of The Modern Libraryâ€™s top 100 nonfiction books of the twentieth century.The Essential Gunnar Myrdal covers the full range of Myrdalâ€™s writing, ... More »

45. The Global Minotaur By Yanis Varoufakis In this remarkable and provocative book, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis explodes the myth that financialisation, ineffectual regulation of banks, greed and globalisation were the root causes of both the Eurozone crisis and the global economic crisis.Â Rather, they are symptoms of a much deeper malaise which can ... More »

46. Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization By Branko Milanovic One of the world’s leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and ... More »

48. Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science By Philip Mirowski This is the first cross-over book in the history of science written by an historian of economics, combining a number of disciplinary and stylistic orientations. In it Philip Mirowshki shows how what is conventionally thought to be "history of technology" can be integrated with the history of economic ... More »

49. Global Finance at Risk: The Case for International Regulation By John Eatwell; Lance Taylor | Price: $0.01 Now in paperback, a "timely" (Library Journal) argument for an international body that will foster a more stable, viable global financial system. In Global Finance at Risk, now available in paperback, two economists whom John Kenneth Galbraith has hailed as "accomplished scholars of the first rank" propose a ... More »

50. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa By Walter Rodney This is the classic account of how European colonial powers underdeveloped Africa. Rodney explores the history of European exploitation of the continent and what it meant then and now in economic terms. If you're interested in this you might also want to read Capitalism and Slavery. More »

51. Population, Capital, and Growth: Selected Essays By Simon Kuznets When Simon Kuznets was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1971, his citation read, in part, "...his empirically based scholarly work has led to a new and more profound insight into the economic and social structure and the process of change and development." These qualities are evident ... More »

52. Late Capitalism By Ernest Mandel Late CapitalismÂ is the first major synthesis to have been produced by the contemporary revival of Marxist economics. It represents, in fact, the only systematic attempt so far ever made to combine the general theory of the â€œlaws of motionâ€Â of the capitalist mode of production developed by Marx, ... More »

53. China's Development: Capitalism and Empire By Michel Aglietta; Guo Bai China is entering a phase where deep structural changes will arise throughout society. These multi-fold processes will be intertwined in a globalized world, impacted by the transformation of capitalism in the aftermath of the financial crisis and under the threat of severe environmental damage. Focussing on sustainability, ... More »

54. Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens By Nicholas Shaxson | Used Price: 60% Off A thrilling ride inside the world of tax havens and corporate mastermindsWhile the United States experiences recession and economic stagnation and European countries face bankruptcy, experts struggle to make sense of the crisis. Nicholas Shaxson, a former correspondent for the Financial Times and The Economist, argues that tax ... More »

55. Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century By Peter H. Lindert | Used Price: 90% Off Peter Lindert inquires as to whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Although taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, only recently have we been able to obtain a clear view of the evolution of social spending. Lindert argues that, contrary to the ... More »

57. States and the Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s By Eric Helleiner | Used Price: 90% Off Most accounts explain the postwar globalization of financial markets as a product of unstoppable technological and market forces. Drawing on extensive historical research, Eric Helleiner provides the first comprehensive political history of the phenomenon, one that details and explains the central role played by states in permitting and ... More »

58. ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism By Yves Smith | Used Price: 80% Off Why are we in such a financial mess today?Â There are lots of proximate causes: over-leverage, global imbalances, bad financial technology that lead to widespread underestimation of risk. But these are all symptoms. Until we isolate and tackle fundamental causes, we will fail to extirpate the disease.Â ECONnedÂ is ... More »

59. Confronting the Third World By Gabriel Kolko | Used Price: 80% Off Kolko, author of eight books on modern American history, here examines the United States's involvement with Third World countries. His major thrust is that the United States was maintaining in Central America, and creating in the Middle East, an empire based on economic advantage and ideologically supported by ... More »

60. The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths By Mariana Mazzucato | Used Price: 50% Off This new bestseller from leading economist Mariana Mazzucato â€“ named by the â€˜New Republicâ€™ as one of the â€˜most important innovation thinkersâ€™ today â€“ is stirring up much-needed debates worldwide about the role of the State in innovation. Debunking the myth of a laggard State at odds with ... More »

61. Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth By Marilyn Waring | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 Safe drinking water counts for nothing. A pollution-free environment counts for nothing. Even some people - namely women - count for nothing. This is the case, at least, according to the United Nations System of National Accounts. Author Marilyn Waring, former New Zealand M.P., now professor, development consultant, ... More »

62. Value and Capital: An Inquiry into some Fundamental Principles of Economic Theory By John Hicks | Used Price: 90% Off "In this book Prof. Hicks has essayed two tasks of major importance; to reduce modern economic analysis to a manageable whole; and to construct a system of Economic Dynamics ... This is one of the few book which mark a stage in the advance of a science."--The Economist"Everything ... More »

63. Super Imperialism By Michael Hudson | Used Price: 50% Off Super Imperialism Investigates the genesis of the US's political and financial domination of today's economic system. 'One of the most important books of this century.' Terence McCarchy, Columbia University Full description More »

64. The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan's Great Recession By Richard C. Koo | Used Price: 70% Off The revised edition of this highly acclaimed work presents crucial lessons from Japan's recession that could aid the US and other economies as they struggle to recover from the current financial crisis.This book is about Japan's 15-year long recession and how it affected current theoretical thinking about its ... More »

66. The Rise and Decline of Nations By Mancur Olson | Used Price: 70% Off The years since World War II have seen rapid shifts in the relative positions of different countries and regions. Leading political economist Mancur Olson offers a new and compelling theory to explain these shifts in fortune and then tests his theory against evidence from many periods of history ... More »

67. The Logic of International Restructuring By Winfried Ruigrok; Rob van Tulder | 90% Off There is within the corporate world an evolving international restructuring race,between industrial complexes,that is set to intensify over the coming years.An industrial complex consists of suppliers,distributors,governments,financiers and trade unions.It is the reorganisation of the relationship between the core firm and the above components that is set to change ... More »

68. Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kahneman | Used Price: 70% Off Major New York Times bestsellerWinner of the NationalÂ Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 2011A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 TitleOne of The Economistâ€™s 2011 Books of the Year ... More »

69. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World By Adam Tooze From a prizewinning economic historian, an eye-opening reinterpretation of the 2008 economic crisis (and its ten-year aftermath) as a global event that directly led to the shockwaves being felt around the world today.In September 2008 President George Bush could still describe the financial crisis as an incident local ... More »

70. Neoliberal Ebola: Modeling Disease Emergence from Finance to Forest and Farm By Rob Wallace; Rodrick Wallace This volume compiles five papers modeling the effects of neoliberal economics on the emergence of Ebola and its aftermath. Neoliberalism is currently the world’s primary economic philosophy. It centers international relations around globalizing laissez-faire economics for multinational companies, promoting free trade, deregulating economic markets, and shifting state expenditures ... More »

71. The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916 By Martin J. Sklar | Used Price: 70% Off At the turn of the twentieth century American politics underwent a profound change, as both regulatory minimalism and statist command were rejected in favor of positive government engaged in both regulatory and distributive roles. Through a fresh examination of the judicial, legislative, and political aspects of the antitrust ... More »

72. Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All By Costas Lapavitsas Financialization is one of the most innovative concepts to emerge in the field of political economy during the last three decades, although there is no agreement on what exactly it is. Profiting Without Producing puts forth a distinctive view defining financialization in terms of the fundamental conduct of ... More »

73. A History of Economic Thought By Lionel Robbins; William J. Baumol | 70% Off Lionel Robbins's now famous lectures on the history of economic thought comprise one of the greatest accounts since World War II of the evolution of economic ideas. This volume represents the first time those lectures have been published. Lord Robbins (1898-1984) ... More »

74. Social Limits to Growth By Fred Hirsch The promise of economic growth which has dominated society for so long has reached an impasse. In his classic analysis, Fred Hirsch argued that the causes of this were essentially social rather than physical. Affluence brings its own problems. As societies become richer, an increasing proportion ... More »

75. Mobile Capital and Latin American Development By James E. Mahon | Used Price: 50% Off Particularly timely in light of the recent Mexican peso crisis, Mobile Capital and Latin American Development examines the causes, consequences, and implications of the Latin American capital flight of the 1980s. It addresses the increasingly mobile and privatized nature of international capital and its power to shape economic ... More »

77. Demystifying the Chinese Economy By Justin Yifu Lin China was the largest and one of most advanced economies in the world before the eighteenth century, yet declined precipitately thereafter and degenerated into one of the world's poorest economies by the late nineteenth century. Despite generations' efforts for national rejuvenation, China did not reverse its fate until ... More »

78. Prosperity without Growth By Tim Jackson Is more economic growth the solution? Will it deliver prosperity and well-being for a global population projected to reach nine billion? In this explosive book, Tim Jackson -Â a top sustainability adviser to the UK governmentÂ - makes a compelling case against continued economic growth in developed nations.No one denies ... More »

79. The Rise of the Western World By Douglass C. North; Robert Paul Thomas First published in 1973, this is a radical interpretation, offering a unified explanation for the growth of Western Europe between 900 A. D. and 1700, providing a general theoretical framework for institutional change geared to the general reader. More »

80. An Economic History of the USSR By Alec Nove This update to "The History of the Soviet Economy" covers the period from the Bolshevik seizure of power to the aftermath of the failed coup, which speeded up the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The final chapter encompasses Gorbachev's attempt to reform the old system and the failure ... More »

81. The Predator State By James K. Galbraith | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 Now available in paperback, this timely book challenges the cult of the free market that has dominated all political and economic discussion since the Reagan revolution. Even many liberals have felt the need to genuflect before the altar of free markets, but in The Predator State, progressive ... More »

83. Theories of Value and Distribution since Adam Smith By Maurice Dobb | Used Price: 90% Off Mr Dobb examines the history of economic thought in the light of the modern controversy over capital theory and, more particularly, the appearance of Sraffa's book The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, which was a watershed in the critical discussions constituted a crucial turning-point in the ... More »

84. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe By Michael J. Hogan | Used Price: 60% Off Michael Hogan shows how The Marshall Plan was more than an effort to put American aid behind the economic reconstruction of Europe. American officials hoped to refashion Western Europe into a smaller version of the integrated single-market and mixed capitalist economy that existed in the United States. Professor ... More »

85. Stone Age Economics By Marshall Sahlins | Used Price: 60% Off Stone Age Economics is a classic study of anthropological economics, first published in 1974. As Marshall Sahlinsstated in the first edition, "It has been inspired by the possibility of 'anthropological economics,' a perspective indebted rather to the nature of the primitive economies than to the categories of a ... More »

86. Monopoly Capital By Paul A. Baran; Paul Sweezy | 70% Off This landmark text by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy is a classic of twentieth-century radical thought, a hugely influential book that continues to shape our understanding of modern capitalism. â€œThis bookâ€¦ deals with a vital area of economics, has a unique approach, is stimulating and well written. It ... More »

87. Lessons from the Great Depression By Peter Temin | Used Price: 80% Off Do events of the 1930s carry a message for the 1990s? Lessons from the Great Depression provides an integrated view of the depression, covering the experience in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. It describes the causes of the depression, why it was so widespread and ... More »

88. How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor By Erik S. Reinert In this refreshingly revisionist history, Erik S. Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism, and strategic investmentâ€”rather than through free trade. Yet when our leaders lecture poor countries on the right path to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of ... More »

89. The Economics of Climate Change By Nicholas Stern | Used Price: 90% Off There is now clear scientific evidence that emissions from economic activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels for energy, are causing changes to the Earth's climate. A sound understanding of the economics of climate change is needed in order to underpin an effective global response to this challenge. ... More »

90. The Joyless Economy: The Psychology of Human Satisfaction By Tibor Scitovsky | Used Price: 70% Off When this classic work was first published in 1976, its central tenet--more is not necessarily better--placed it in direct conflict with mainstream thought in economics. Within a few years, however, this apparently paradoxical claim was gaining wide acceptance. Scitovsky's ground-breaking book was the first to apply theories ... More »

91. Varieties of Capitalism By Peter A. Hall; David Soskice | 70% Off What are the most important differences among national economies? Is globalization forcing nations to converge on an Anglo-American model? What explains national differences in social and economic policy? This pathbreaking work outlines a new approach to these questions. It highlights the role of business in national economies and ... More »

92. Nicholas Kaldor: The Economics and Politics of Capitalism as a Dynamic System By Ferdinando Targetti | Used Price: 90% Off This is an intellectual biography of Nicholas Kaldor, one of this century's most innovative and influential economists. It constitutes a valuable contribution to the history of economic thought and to the post-Keynesian school of economics. More »

93. Priests of Prosperity: How Central Bankers Transformed the Postcommunist World By Juliet Johnson Priests of Prosperity explores the unsung revolutionary campaign to transform postcommunist central banks from command-economy cash cows into Western-style monetary guardians. Juliet Johnson conducted more than 160 interviews in seventeen countries with central bankers, international assistance providers, policymakers, and private-sector finance professionals over the course of fifteen years. ... More »

94. The Unbound Prometheus By David S. Landes | Used Price: 60% Off In this new edition of his classic history on revolution and economic development in Europe, David Landes reasserts his original arguments in the light of current debates about globalization and comparative economic growth. Questions about why Europe was the first to industrialize and the viability of the post-war ... More »

95. The Limits of Organization By Kenneth Arrow | Under $1.00 The tension between what we wish for and what we can get, between values and opportunities, exists even at the purely individual level. A hermit on a mountain may value warm clothing and yet be hard-pressed to make it from the leaves, bark, or skins he can find. ... More »

96. The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development By Sara Roy In this ground-breaking and comprehensive study, Sara Roy examines in detail the political economy of the Gaza Strip since the Israeli occupation in 1967. Providing an historical context for Israeli economic policy, Roy argues that despite certain economic benefits that have accrued to the Gaza Strip as a ... More »

97. Money: The Unauthorized Biography By Felix Martin | Used Price: 70% Off From ancient currency to Adam Smith, from the gold standard to shadow banking and the Great Recession: a sweeping historical epic that traces the development and evolution of one of humankindâ€™s greatest inventions.What is money, and how does it work? In this tour de force of political, cultural ... More »

98. Developing Brazil: Overcoming the Failure of the Washington Consensus By Bresser Pereira After the 1994 Real Plan ended fourteen years of high inflation in Brazil, the country's economy was expected - mistakenly - to grow quickly. Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira discusses Brazil's economic trajectory from the mid-1990s to the present Lula administration, critically appraising the neoliberal reforms that have curtailed growth ... More »

99. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy By Stephanie Kelton The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory -- the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades -- delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society. Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary ... More »

100. Value in Ethics and Economics By Elizabeth Anderson Elizabeth Anderson offers a new theory of value and rationality that rejects cost-benefit analysis in our social lives and in our ethical theories. This account of the plurality of values thus offers a new approach, beyond welfare economics and traditional theories of justice, for assessing the ethical limitations ... More »

The 100 Best Economics Books of All Time list includes works by many of the great economists along with many leading books on major issues in the field. The list is for those with a serious interest in economics, but not necessarily for economics professionals; it contains some books on the principles of economics, but is light on theory, focussing on more readable texts. The list has a strong focus on international economics and the financial crash of 2008. It covers a wide range of ideologies, featuring the likes of Adam Smith, Schumpeter, Hayek, Keynes, Polanyi, Stiglitz, and Marx.Related pages