Economics explains the world

BREAKTHROUGH

- By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

If you can only read one book about economics, I would highly recommend "How Economics Explains the World: A Short History of Humanity" by Andrew Leigh, published by Mariner Books, 2024. This book has been highly recommended by Claudia Goldin, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics. It has been described as a "sweeping, engrossing history of how economic forces have shaped the world." The other feature of this book is that it is the most readable book on economics that I have read—and it is all of 200 pages only.

It has also been recommended for people who are curious but confused about economics. It is a story about key moments in the world's economic history that created the economies we see today around the globe. It is also the story of how economic forces have shaped history. It is a story of how economics explains the world we live in today.

In the Preface to the book, there are a series of questions that the book tries to answer. Why didn't Africa colonize Europe instead of the other way around? What happened when countries erected trade and immigration barriers in the 1930s? Why did the Allies win World War II? Why did inequality in many advanced countries fall in the 1950s and the 1960s? How did property rights drive China's growth surge in the 1980s? How does climate change threaten our future prosperity?

These are some of the questions that the book seeks to answer.

It is divided into 14 chapters which together is the story of the way economics has shaped the story of our species.