Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (September 1, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0810988399
ISBN-13: 978-0810988392
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #59,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #45 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Educational & Nonfiction #71 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Biographies & History Graphic Novels #98 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Theory
UPDATE 5/20/14: The Law of Supply and Demand wins out. I can't find a better primer on economics for students (or anyone), so I must live with the single aspect of the book I dislike. I have raised my rating from one star to four. I still hope that for the second edition, the authors will reconsider their needless criticism of gun owners, et al.EARLIER REVIEW: The author takes unnecessary potshots at too many people and ends up shooting himself in the foot, as far as I'm concerned. I was excited about reading this book and sharing it with my teenagers until the author started belittling conservatives in general. Attacking bad ideas and dumb individuals--specific ideas and specific individuals--is fine with me, but attacking huge swaths of people solely because they own guns or belong to the Republican Party is no smarter than insulting a whole race or religion because you dislike one characteristic of some of its members. Take the high road instead, and make a logical argument against that characteristic. It's the people at whom you are sneering that you most need to convince.The primary means the government uses to control us isn't secrecy; it's our disdain for each other. It's so easy to trigger that disdain and make people support a bad policy, if it appears to be sticking it to our (apparent) political enemies. If the author revises the book and deletes the mudslinging, I'll buy that version and recommend it to others. The current version has left a bad taste in my mouth.
The author's concept, communicating basic economic theory through a graphic novel is very interesting and creative. It must have been terribly difficult to achieve such a good result in so few pages.The odd thing about the book is that you whiz from Adam Smith to the 1950's in about 1/2 of the book and then you hit an increasingly political diatribe and the deft talent that the author showed in the first half of the book for quickly describing complicated and difficult topics starts to disappear, replaced by an increasingly tone-deaf one-sided one-size-fits-all philosophy. This is too bad as the author does a VERY nice job of laying out his arguments and would have been considerably more convincing if he had come across as a teacher who has lots of disturbing questions about the official line instead of as a person who knows everything.In spite of the disappointment at the end, the book earns 4 stars from me for two reasons:- The first part of the book is solid gold and should be required reading for every high school student- The author admited that he was going over the edge before he got too far into his arguments. This kind of self-awareness is rare in textbook authors and I encourage more to emulate the author's confidence and sense of humor
What an incredible way to learn about the history of economics. I was skeptical as I began to tiptoe into this book, already thinking I was a lost cause as it related to understanding how money, business, and government worked. But, Economix makes its subject fascinating and understandable. Goodwin somehow makes our history clear and often hilarious, although it's justifiably a tragic humor.This book has given me clearer understanding of market crashes, communism, the New Deal, laissez-faire, etc. The collaboration between Goodwin and his illustrator, Burr, is solid.Goodwin expresses his wish for the book to be a foundation for people learning about economics and I can't imagine a stronger one.
Really a treatise on why the USA economy is where it is after the Great Recession. Does go into economic theory but its strength lies in reviewing policies implemented in the USA. Because basic economic theory (which should be understood before reading this comic) should be already part the reader's knowledge before reading (see Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein's Cartoon Introduction to Economics Vol-1 http://www..com/gp/product/0809094819/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_55 and Vol-2 http://www..com/gp/product/0809033615/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_53), this isn't necessarily where to start so to grasp economic theory. For a guy like me who has virtually no background in the subject, the information is somewhat unsettling but expected (a lot of the information has been mentioned-in-passing on radio, television, and various printed media.)
The book is an informative crash course about the history of economics; particularly, in US and the western world. The history spans from the British monopolies to WW1 to WW2 to 2008 Wall Street crash. The book talks about various theories of economy and their pros and cons. Of course, the book does contain opinions from the author, but then which literary work doesn't.All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Very informative!!
My Intro to Micro and Macro textbooks didn't teach me many useful things about economics, just a few theories and graphs based on models divorced from reality. Until now my favourite book about econ was Economics For Everyone by Jim Stanford, but Economix is way better. It made alot of excellent points which I've never heard before, such as: classical liberals and neo-liberals want a small government because they don't want it to oppress people, but they seem oblivious to the fact that corporations can oppress people too and the only organization capable of keeping them in check is the government; a private oligopoly controlling the vast majority of a market is as bad, or worse, than a government monopoly; Adam Smith was as concerned about the concentration of private power as anyone on the left today. As well as a few conclusions I had arrived at myself but never had anyone else back me up on before, such as: mainstream economists talk about unnecessary math to describe theoretical models with little resemblance to reality.I would have liked if the book included something about monetary reform, but it's an obscure topic so I wouldn't be surprised if even a researcher as good as the author didn't know about it.Buy this book and share it with your friends when you're done!
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