Hidden Order : Economics of Everyday Life, The
Author: David D. Friedman
List Price: $15.95
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ISBN: 0887308856
Publisher: HarperBusiness (27 August, 1997)
Sales Rank: 37,782
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
Excellent second-stage primer
Like Steven Landsburg's "Armchair Economist," David Friedman's "Hidden Order" is an excellent primer in basic economics. Any book that helps bring real economics (as opposed to pseudo talk-show/pundit/political speech "economics") to an understandable level is good in my book, even if occasionally flawed."Armchair" did a good-to-excellent job of boiling down complex economic questions and answers. "Hidden Order" does so as well, but note that it's not for the light-hearted; plenty of graphs are available, and one not versed in Econ 101 may become temporarily lost. Thankfully, Friedman shores up his chapters by proving the theory with graphs, then stating "Here it is in English..." This allows readers who are not graphically inclined to skip over it without losing much understanding, while readers more interested in finding the proof behind the claim can peruse the mathematics at their leisure.
Still, it's not all perfect. There's some issues that he goes into great length, but others are touched on and left hanging. In part this is to reduce the down time for an already-sluggish topic, but the length for each issue varies quite a bit. And I have no idea why a parking meter is on the cover.
Rating: 5 out of 5
An economics books that's not for "sissies"
Be prepared to think as you read this book, it is not just a tirade as so many books with an economic ax to grind are! But the effort you must put into understanding this book will be well rewarded. I paticularly liked the concepts of buyers surplus and sellers surplus, they have enriched my views as to what happens when exchanges take place.The mainstream media still does not understand international trade in even the most basic way. This is amazing and distressing to me. I was glad to see the author compare this to still accepting the ancient Ptolemiac view of astronomy. Please folks, read ANY economist about foreign trade, what is NOT true is the imports=bad, exports=good notion despite the claims of bumper stickers (Buy American) and politicians (Pat Buchannon). Journalists, please research this issure a bit before you speak!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Hidden Order: An AP Microeconomics Student's Perspective
This book was easy to read, helpful, and gave interesting and unique examples for common economic theories. This is a great book to use in an AP class! Paired with our economics textbook, this reading explained the phenomena that we read about in the textbook. Similar Products
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