Author: Steven Levitt & Stephen DubnerGenre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 210
Rating: 5/5
Synopsis: Freakonomics is a collection of economic articles by Levitt & co-author Dubner wherein they unravel the mysteries behind the events and issues we encounter in our everyday life, based on their 'unconventional' economic theories. The authors state that there is no unifying theme in the book, though the aim is to explore the 'hidden side of things'
I've been wanting to read this book for ages now and am glad I did it finally. It's one of the best non-fiction books I've read this year. One word that comes to my mind when I think of this book is - Unconventional. The book is not based on the typical economic theories and numbers. It gives a completely different view of the world. Some of the conclusions drawn by Levitt are just unbelievable and close to earth-shattering!
Levitt has a great knack of staying away from convention. He unravels the assumptions & myths layer by layer to present the 'real causes' behind the trends. The book is pretty much like a set of case studies where Levitt takes a few significant historical events (a mundane set of open-ended questions) and analyzes the trends to finally arrive at that one particular moment which actually caused the event.
The book encourages us to think laterally, out of the box, to keep our eyes open and minds alert and break out of the conventional ways of thinking and see through the trends with a fresh eye. In short, it makes economics seem like fun!
Highly recommeded ....A must read!!
8 comments:
Looks like it's ur blogging day today. 2 posts :) Where do u disappear days on end.
@shona - LOL! yeah finally I took time out to post the reviews. I get so buried with work that I hardly get time to visit blogs and post my reviews. I have loads of them pending! So you'll see few more posts soon ;-)
Wow. Nice review. As an Economics Major, we had to devour this book for a lot of our Econ classes.
So glad you liked it. :)
...The conventional was once unconventional. The unconventional to conventional and conventional to unconventional cycle goes on and on...
The boom and bust economic cycles may have a lot to do with a combination of the above..
I have heard so many GREAT things about this one, and am glad you liked this. I am always unsure about picking up non-fiction!
Maybe someday :)
@Grain de Beaute - Thanks! I wud have actually loved to read this as part of a coursework :)
@Veens - I feel u need to have that right frame of mind to read non-fiction. I find it difficult to pick it up just like that! :) But this is well worth a read..
If you liked this then you would like Black Swan as well.. Try to get your hand on it..
@Praveen - What coincidence! I am currently reading Black Swan :)
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