Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius

by
Sylvia Nasar

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Overview

An instant New York Times bestseller, in a sweeping narrative the author of the esteemed A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through modern history with the men and women who changed the lives of every single person on the planet. Grand Pursuit is the epic story of the making of modern economics, of how economics rescued mankind from squalor and deprivation by placing its material fate in its own hands.

“Full of flesh, bloom, and warmth….Grand Pursuit deserves a place not only in every economist’s study but also on every serious reader’s bedside table.” —The Economist

“Like Lords of Finance, Grand Pursuit is narrative history at its finest.” —Bloomberg.com

“A worthy successor to Robert Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers….Nasar’s aim is to put the reader into the lives of the characters of a sweeping historical drama that extends from Victorian England to modern-day India.” —The Washington Post

“Capacious and absorbing.” —The New Yorker

“Nasar brilliantly brings to life game-changing economists from Marx to Hayek and from Sidney Webb to Milton Friedman, tracing the evolution of modern economic thinking through the richly detailed stories of the men and woman who reshaped how we think of life’s possibilities.” —The Boston Globe

Editorial Reviews

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This is Sylvia Nasar's second book, her first since her bestselling 1998 debut A Beautiful Mind, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. It takes as its subjects the European and Americans intellectuals who transformed economics into a central discipline, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Beatrice and Sidney Webb; Joseph Schumpeter; John Maynard Keynes; Joan Robinson; Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

— Catherine Whitlow

Publishers Weekly

Nasar's A Beautiful Mind mined a rich dramatic vein in the story of a solitary mathematical genius. Her new work looks to a broad sweep of modern economic history for similar magic—with mixed results. While the author rightly sees a vital and indeed dramatic core to the "dismal science," the narrative can feel desultory at times. Tracing the accompanying rise of economic theory in the development of global capitalism, Nasar's cast of (mostly) famous men and women seeks to tackle the increasingly disconcerting problem of widespread want in the midst of enormous concentrations of wealth. Her chronological narrative emphasizes a key tension between antistatist laissez faire ideas and the logic of the modern welfare state. A final chapter on Indian economist Amartya Sen takes us beyond the West briefly, but the book concentrates overwhelmingly on the centers of capitalist power up through WWII. The attempt to squeeze a good story from her subjects can encourage a lopsided accounting, where Marx, for example, becomes a clownish personal figure whose economic ideas are all the easier to dismiss while the contributions of Alfred Marshall are arguably overemphasized. Historiographically thin, the book serves best as a curiosity-piquing introduction to figures and basic themes in modern economic history rather than a definitive study. (Sept.)

More Reviews (4) Fewer Reviews

Library Journal

Nasar (John S. and James. L Knight Professor, Columbia Graduate Sch. of Journalism; A Beautiful Mind) posits that economics theorists have over the last two centuries shown people how they might take charge of their destinies rather than trusting their material progress to fate. It's an ambitious project, and Nasar offers chapters that mix history and biography while explaining the greatest hits of economic thought. She links theorists with their settings, including Marx and Engels in Paris and England, Beatrice and Sidney Webb in London, Joseph Schumpeter in Vienna, and John Maynard Keynes seemingly everywhere. Nasar's biographical sketches are lively, but the history sometimes bogs down in the (still simplified) economic details. Although the book proceeds chronologically in three sections (pre-World War I, during World War I and the lead-up to World War II, and the postwar period), it never quite seems to gel as either narrative history or biography. VERDICT Libraries and readers have waited 13 years for Nasar's second book, and there will be demand. But the story may be too dry for fans of biography and not rigorous enough for hard-core economics wonks. [See Prepub Alert, 2/28/11.]—Sarah Statz Cords, The Reader's Advisor Online

Kirkus Reviews

A popular treatment of the emergence of political economics, as well as a discussion of the major unresolved issues still on the table today, such as the role of government in managing society versus the efficacy of the free market.

Nasar (Journalism/Columbia Graduate School; A Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., 1998) begins her examination of the evolution of modern society, and the attempt by leading intellectuals to understand and shape the process, with a look at the Victorian era and the writings of Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Malthus and others. This was a time when the question of how to improve the deplorable condition of the British working classes—illustrated by writers such as Charles Dickens, whom Nasar cites—was hotly debated, with Malthus blaming the depravity of the poor and Marx predicting revolution. The author references the less well-known but influential work of economist Alfred Marshall, a champion of universal education and technology who argued against the notion that philanthropy and political economy were at odds and that progress was not possible without revolution. Nasar acknowledges the Fabian society as the firstthink tank, although the word "connot[ing] the growing role of the expert to public policy making wasn't coined until World War II." At the turn of the century, it was influential in shaping public policy in the direction of social reform, attracting such notables as Winston Churchill, then a liberal, to its ranks. Nasar gives a gripping account of the devastation in Europe after World War I, and the conflict since over how to resolve cyclical economic crises such as the depression of the 1930s and the current recession.

This broad-sweep introduction adds an important historical dimension to current debates on the future of the American economy.

Justin Fox

…the book as a whole is made up of so many wonderful parts that one is inclined to excuse its shortcomings…[a] rich, in places dazzling, history.
—The New York Times Book Review

Steven Pearlstein

Grand Pursuit is a worthy successor to Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers, a staple of introductory courses in economics. Nasar's aim, however, is not to write intellectual history but to put the reader into the lives of the characters of a sweeping historical drama that extends from Victorian England to modern-day India. That she largely succeeds reflects the depth and breadth of her research but also the elegance of her prose.
—The Washington Post

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780684872988
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 9/13/2011
Pages: 576
Sales rank: 34,939
Product dimensions: 6.20 (w) x 9.40 (h) x 1.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Sylvia Nasar is the author of the bestselling A Beautiful Mind, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography. She is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Preface: The Nine Parts of Mankind xi

Act I Hope

Prologue: Mr. Sentiment Versus Scrooge 3

Chapter I Perfectly New: Engels and Marx in the Age of Miracles 11

Chapter II Must There Be a Proletariat? Marshall's Patron Saint 48

Chapter III Miss Potter's Profession: Webb and the Housekeeping State 91

Chapter IV Cross of Gold: Fisher and the Money Illusion 139

Chapter V Creative Destruction: Schumpeter and Economic Evolution 171

Act II Fear

Prologue: War of the Worlds 197

Chapter VI The Last Days of Mankind: Schumpeter in Vienna 207

Chapter VII Europe Is Dying: Keynes at Versailles 235

Chapter VIII The Joyless Street: Schumpeter and Hayek in Vienna 262

Chapter IX Immaterial Devices of the Mind: Keynes and Fisher in the 1920s 281

Chapter X Magneto Trouble: Keynes and Fisher in the Great Depression 306

Chapter XI Experiments: Webb and Robinson in the 1930s 338

Chapter XII The Economists' War: Keynes and Friedman at the Treasury 354

Chapter XIII Exile: Schumpeter and Hayek in World War II 372

Act III Confidence

Prologue: Nothing to Fear 383

Chapter XIV Past and Future: Keynes at Bretton Woods 390

Chapter XV The Road from Serfdom: Hayek and the German Miracle 399

Chapter XVI Instruments of Mastery: Samuelson Goes to Washington 409

Chapter XVII Grand Illusion: Robinson in Moscow and Beijing 426

Chapter XVIII Tryst with Destiny: Sen in Calcutta and Cambridge 446

Epilogue: Imagining the Future 461

Acknowledgments 465

Notes 467

Index 527

Photo Credits 557

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Anonymous

Posted April 15, 2012

How Ideas Develop

The book does much more than explain how thought about economics developed. It puts the development in a historical context and traces ties between changes in science and politics suggesting that the rules of economics are not eternal truths but reflections of other aspects of society. It is compelling yet can be digested in chunks. Thank you Sylvia Nasser.
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John_75-00

Posted January 19, 2012

IIt's interesting but not well organized; you'd better know something about economics before you read it.

This book rambles. It does not appear to have clear direction. It's generally sort of chronological, but sometimes wanders off that path. Economic concepts are referenced, but not explained, so if you're not versed in economics to some degree, you may have a problem.
Nevertheless, it is interesting, and provides valuable historical perspectives on economic outlooks of key developers of economic theory. I enjoyed the book because I knew very little about economics and now have a little bit of a feel for it.
If you know something about the subject and want historical perspectives, this is a readable and appropriate book.
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Anonymous

Posted November 10, 2011

A Study In How Economics Evolved From Issues Of Scarcity

This is a lively study of how economics evolved from issues of food scarcity, famine, during hard times in a more agrarian era, and how the issues of corporate finance, mass unemployment, and government policy complicate scarcity issues in more advanced industry-based and technology-based economies. Sylvia Nasar shows how each economist from Malthus to Keynes confronted issues in their own eras and developed concepts for analysis and measurement of economics questions. She makes each era come alive with documentary detail, giving us a "you are there" feel for the prevailing conditions of the time, and that is helpful in bringing practical urgency to the study of why certain concepts were developed in the sometimes "dismal science." -Mike Mooney
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Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius

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How Ideas Develop

IIt's interesting but not well organized; you'd better know something about economics before you read it.

A Study In How Economics Evolved From Issues Of Scarcity