Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius

From Barnes & Noble

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

Steven Pearlstein

Justin Fox

Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

—Mickey Edwards, The Boston Globe

“A fascinating excursion into the economic ideas and personalities that have deposited most of us at a standard of living unparalleled in human history…engrossing…Nasar, who wrote A Beautiful Mind, …is drawn to intellectual giants. They stomp across the idiosyncratic and readable pages of Grand Pursuit, which unfurls with a David McCullough-like knack for telling popular history….On these pages, the dismal science shines.”—Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Grand Pursuit is 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. That she largely succeeds reflects the depth and breadth of her research but also the elegance of her prose.”

—Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post

“Nasar is a superb writer. . . . The book is a kind of portrait gallery of economic thinkers, each artfully set down in his or her time and place. . . . You can’t help becoming engrossed in their lives.”

—James Grant, The Wall Street Journal

“[This] is the story of the evolution of a radical, planet-reshaping idea…The canvas is epic…The details are fresh, at times startling…At the same time, gnarly but critical concepts…shine through in all their richness and complexity. If only Econ 101 had been this interesting!” –Fortune

“Grand Pursuit is a history of economics which is full of flesh, bloom and warmth. The author demonstrates that there is far more to economics than Thomas Carlyle’s “dismal science”. And she does so with all the style and panache that you would expect from the author of the 1998 bestseller, A Beautiful Mind. . . . A wonderful book. Grand Pursuit deserves a place not only in every economist’s study but also on every serious reader’s bedside table.”

—The Economist

“One of the many wonderful things about Nasar’s book is that in it, economic genius isn’t limited to the usual suspects….Even when exploring famous economic minds, Nasar brings out the humanity in the dismal science by showing their ideas are nearly always rooted in formative experiences.”

— TIME Magazine

“Nasar has written a compelling history of modern economics, a story of the theorists as well as of their theories. . . . Grand Pursuit is artfully rendered and a delight to read. . . . One suspects that future economics textbooks will warrant some revisions. All the same, their authors would profit from consulting Grand Pursuit.”

— Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s **FIVE STAR** Review

“A timely reminder of the importance of the so-called dismal science. . . . Written almost as a novel and aimed at those without a background in economics, the book charts capitalism's evolution through the eyes of the people who invented it. . . . It is compellingly written, full of detail and vivid anecdotes, and with a refreshing focus on people rather than prices.”

—Gregor Hunter, The Nation

Library Journal

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.