Diane Coyle reviews Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers
Diane Coyle, author of provocative and deep books including Sex, Drugs, and Economics: An Unconventional Introduction to Economics (2002), The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why it Matters (2009), and GDP: An Affectionate History (2012), has posted her review of Madmen over at The Enlightened Economist. She appreciates pairing the goal of the book (to understand political change, as we define that term) with a “clear and concise history of thought”, and she concludes favorably:
The book is very clearly written and an accessible introduction to an important strand of the history of economic thought that is still highly relevant to policy debates today. The three core chapters and the examples make it an extremely useful introductory or background resource for students, and I’ll certainly add them to my reading list for next semester. The final chapter does also end with good advice for wannabee policy entrepreneurs: “Improving the human condition should start with recognising that people respond to incentives, and that incentives are part of institutions that neither rise nor fall overnight, and that the slow emergence of both good and bad ideas can change these institutions and thus have an enduring impact on the human condition. … Ideas indeed can have consequences.”