Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius

Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius
Sylvia Nasar

Sylvia Nasar, the author of the phenomenal bestseller A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through the epic story of the making of modern economics, and how it rescued mankind from squalor and deprivation by placing its material fate in its own hands, rather than in Fate.

Nasar's account begins with Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew observing and publishing the condition of the poor majority in mid 19th century London, the richest and most glittering place in the world. This was a new pursuit. She then describes the efforts of Marx, Engels, Alfred Marshall, Beatrice and Sydney Webb, and Irving Fisher to put those insights into action - with revolutionary consequences for the world.

From the great John Maynard Keynes to Schumpeter, Hayek, Keynes's disciple Joan Robinson, the influential American economists Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman, and India's Nobel Prize Winner Amartya Sen, she show how the insights of these activist thinkers transformed the world - from one city, London, to the developed nations in Europe and America and now the entire world.

In Nasar's dramatic account of these discoverers we witness men and women responding to personal crises, world wars, revolutions, economic upheavals, and each others' ideas to turn back Malthus and transform the dismal science into a triumph over mankind's hitherto age-old destiny of misery and early death. This story, unimaginable less than 200 years ago, is a story of trial and error, and ultimately transcendent, rendered here in stunning narrative.

GRAND PURSUIT

Sylvia Nasar

THE STORY OF

ECONOMIC GENIUS

Dedication (#u85050a11-3a9f-5485-9724-59813f61e2a7)

For my parents

Contents

Cover (#uff4e0317-67ec-56cf-8fe3-7e6a0604ce6b)

Title Page (#uc57cd28e-aefa-51f4-9438-d72424d00351)

Dedication

Preface: The Nine Parts of Mankind

Act I: Hope

Prologue: Mr. Sentiment Versus Scrooge

Chapter I: Perfectly New: Engels and Marx in the Age of Miracles

Chapter II: Must There Be a Proletariat? Marshall’s Patron Saint

Chapter III: Miss Potter’s Profession: Webb and the Housekeeping State

Chapter IV: Cross of Gold: Fisher and the Money Illusion

Chapter V: Creative Destruction: Schumpeter and Economic Evolution

Act II: Fear

Prologue: War of the Worlds

Chapter VI: The Last Days of Mankind: Schumpeter in Vienna

Chapter VII: Europe Is Dying: Keynes at Versailles

Chapter VIII: The Joyless Street: Schumpeter and Hayek in Vienna

Chapter IX: Immaterial Devices of the Mind: Keynes and Fisher in the 1920s

Chapter X: Magneto Trouble: Keynes and Fisher in the Great Depression

Chapter XI: Experiments: Webb and Robinson in the 1930s

Chapter XII: The Economists’ War: Keynes and Friedman at the Treasury

Act III: Confidence

Prologue: Nothing to Fear

Chapter XIII: Exile: Schumpeter and Hayek in World War II

Chapter XIV: Past and Future: Keynes at Bretton Woods

Chapter XV: The Road from Serfdom: Hayek and the German Miracle

Chapter XVI: Instruments of Mastery: Samuelson Goes to Washington

Chapter XVII: Grand Illusion: Robinson in Moscow and Beijing

Chapter XVIII: Tryst with Destiny: Sen in Calcutta and Cambridge

Epilogue: Imagining the Future

Notes

Index

Picture Section

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Sylvia Nasar

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)