Economics: A Very Short Introduction

Awesome book. If you want a textbook, get something else... The strengths of this book are: it avoids the trap of doing a developed-world only description, it really allows you to appreciate how economists think, it ties economic concepts to concepts from other disciplines. It can get technical sometimes for the least mathematical readership, but still a must read. Chapter 5 alone justifies buying the book (Science and technology as institutions).

This book can get technical at times, but for someone who has a sincere interest in getting a feel for the general workings of economics, I highly recommend this book. It's a lovely series in general, these "Very Brief Introductions", love 'em.

Partha Dasgupta writes in his Preface of A Very Short Introduction: "... in one way or another we are all economists. ... As economics matters to us, we also have views on what should be done to put things right when we feel they are wrong. And we hold our views strongly because our ethics drive our politics and our politics inform our economics. .... I should ... offer an account of the reasoning we economists apply in order to understand the social world around us and then deploy that reasoning to some of the most urgent problems Humanity faces today." As it is fairly obvious from the quoted passage Partha Dasgupta is a concerned and ethical person; thus, he frames his discussions of many economic concepts, such as "grim strategy" (you come to know what strategy the overpaid executives of failing companies apply when planning to quit their positions) and "ideal market," with the life stories of his metaphorical grandchildren, Becky and Desta, representing the post-industrial developed society and the economically under-developed society respectively. Partha Dasgupta's narrative is at times dry - as one expects from a book of economics - but with the framing device of practical examples he added a breath of life to his exposition. I recommend this book to anybody who has always been interested in economics but has not had much time to read a lengthy book of economics.