THE ORDINARY BUSINESS OF LIFE
A History of Economics from the Ancient World to the Twenty-First Century
by Roger E. Backhouse
A sweeping chronicle of the Dismal Science’s long evolution.
Some readers may already know that Thomas Carlyle coined that famous expression to describe economics, but Backhouse (Economics/Univ. of Birmingham) supplies other tidbits obscure to all but adepts. Antoine Augustine Cournot was the first to diagram the standard supply/demand curves. The notion of Gross National Product first appeared at the Brookings Institution in 1934. The origin of the name itself derives from a work by Athenian writer Xenophon entitled Oikonomikos (household management). This detailed history will certainly round out a truly liberal education, though it tells us perhaps more about economics than strictly necessary for the ordinary business of life. Backhouse traces his subject from Hesiod, past Augustine, Aquinas, and the medieval Church. He discusses Islamic economic thought and reviews the commercial notions of the Reformation. He considers the rise of the mercantile nation-state. Hobbes and Locke, Hume and the Scots (Adam Smith in particular) have their say, as do Bentham and Ricardo, Mill and Marx. The use of math and statistics, followed by the advent of national accounting, made economics an academic discipline and even a profession. With the works of former mathematician Irving Fisher and social critic Thorstein Veblen, the Americans became ascendant in the discipline, building on the general theory of vaunted Brit John Maynard Keynes. During WWII, economists contributed in various ways, even serving in the OSS. Game theory, algebra, and the concept of econometrics expanded economics’ reach well beyond its classical foundations in land, labor, and capital. As the subject became more technical, mathematical, and abstract, however, so does Backhouse’s prose. Some readers may miss particular juicy details, but this compact study gives an accomplished and remarkably comprehensive overview of an often arcane field of inquiry.
Studious amateurs as well as earnest undergrads will probably make this a standard text.