Resources
All Materials are available at Amazon.com unless otherwise specified
Seminar Reading Resources
Economic Ideas-Lite
Heilbronner,
Robert L. The Worldly Philosophers, 7th
edition (1995)
A"Must Read." The standard undergraduate introduction. Easy reading but the essentials are there.
Economic Ideas-Middle Weight
Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom,
A "Must Read" A serious application of economic principles to a wide range of problems by a Nobel Prize winner.
Hayek,
Friedrich A. The Road to Serfdom.
Optional.
A Nobel Prize winner for his no-longer-read work on monetary theory, Hayek
(along with Ludwig von Mises)
was
a major proponent libertarian economic philosophy. This book is now dated (from
the early post WWII-Pre Cold War era)
and little read nowadays, but still good reading.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
The first four chapters (on Marx) are a "Must Read." The rest is optional but excellent. Schumpeter admired Marx but not
Marxism. He shared Marx's vision that capitalism was doomed, but for very different reasons.
Stigler, George J. Essays in the
History of Economics, University of Chicago Press, 1965.
Out of print but selected chapters are available at links on the syllabus page.
Economic Ideas-Industrial Strength
Blaug, Mark, Economic Theory in Retrospect, 5th edition.
This is the bible for both undergraduates and graduate
students. It has far more detail than required for this seminar, but for those
who have a fancy for a deeper understanding of the
debates, this is a must. It is a reference work, not to be read from cover to
cover
by the faint-hearted.
Additional Resources
The emphasis of the seminar
is on macroeconomics, particularly on the interpretation of capitalism and its
dynamics up to Keynes. For those
interested in a fuller treatment of the field, particularly in microeconomics, the following very optional reading is recommended.
Flynn, Sean M. Economics
for Dummies
A broad overview—Economics 101 without the pain. The focus is on modern economics, not on the history of economic thought.
Bauman,Yoram. Quantum Microeconomics. (To retrieve this, click here. This PDF file requires Adobe Reader)
An open-source textbook on the principles of microeconomics written by a PhD economist who is also a standup comic.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. History of Economic Analysis,
Schumpeter--called
“the last man who knew everything”--spent much of his life writing a history of
economic thought. This 1000-page
result
was published posthumously after editing of Schumpeter's notes by his
wife, Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter. Extremely erudite and
densely
packed, difficult and often disjointed, this is the Source of the River of the
History of Economic Thought. If Blaug doesn’t satisfy,
try this. If you can complete this, you should get an Olympic Gold Medal for Tenacity and Commitment.