Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

There is much to like about this latest book by Knoop (Cornell College, Iowa).  It is probably the most comprehensive, thorough, and balanced treatment of a topic that has been hotly debated in the discipline since William Stanley Jevons proposed the sunspot theory in the 1880s.  The author delivers on his promise to write a non-technical narrative that is accessible to non-specialist readers.  Knoop integrates the theory, the empirical analysis, and specific case studies up to and including the financial crisis of 2008 to explain how views of the business cycle have evolved over time.  What this reader enjoyed most in the book, though, is the concluding chapter.  Knoop clearly articulates what people know about business cycles, with the appropriate caveat that what is believed true today could well be cast into doubt by future events.  Moreover, he ends the book with four questions that sum up much of what is not known about business cycles with some solid synopses of current disagreements among economists.  This book will stir students' curiosity and encourage their research.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers and faculty.

The first essay in this book by Ó Gráda, one of the world's leading authorities on the history and economics of famine, explores the literature, evidence, and historiography of cannibalism as a response to famine hunger.  While there are numerous anecdotes of famine cannibalism across time and space, the taboo nature of the subject means that the magnitude of its practice has rarely been measured and has been both under- and overestimated simply because the topic is so horrific.  Two more essays, "Sufficiency and Sufficiency and Sufficiency" and "Great Leap into Great Famine," reexamine the extensive literatures on the 1943-44 Bengal famine and the 1959-61 Chinese famine.  Ó Gráda describes and evaluates the proximate causeswhether climatic, geographical, ideological, or politicalnoted by contemporaneous observers and policy makers, and detailed in retrospective academic studies.  The essays also cover demographic and economic consequences of famine; here and in a third essay, the author offers extensive discussion of the extent and failures of markets.  In the final essay, the focus shifts to the nature of and response to famine today.  The breadth of primary and secondary resources referenced is notable throughout, and this excellent book by a leading scholar is accessible to all readers.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Developing countries demonstrate considerable political, cultural, ethnic, and economic diversity, making generalizations about them very problematic.  Increasing differentiation further complicates the ability to understand the development, poverty, modernization, and globalization challenges these countries face.  The new edition of this book by Taylor and Lybbert (both, Univ. of California, Davis) seeks to provide readers with an understanding of the diversity and complexity of the developing world and its challenges.  A creative, innovative, and flexible alternative to traditional development economics books, this volume is more affordable, compact, and reader friendly.  It is mainly written for a new generation of students more comfortable searching the Internet than wading through traditional textbooks.  Among the most interesting and useful features of the book are the Quick Reference (QR) codes at the end of each chapter.  They direct readers to online materials, including images, animations, video clips, and interviews with some of the most influential development economists.  Inserting multimedia material is a fine way of making development economics interesting, relevant, and useful.  This book is both interesting and informative; it can serve as a basis for further student research and discussion and as a reference for those more advanced in the field.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.

In recent years, economists have questioned the relationship between economics and ethics.  Neoclassical economists view economics as a positive science (like physics) and argue that it is primarily concerned with describing and applying the natural laws that govern market behavior.  A variety of other economists and philosophers insist that economics is a normative science that must also prescribe how humans ought to behave within those markets.  Those who defend the normative argument then debate exactly which theories provide that moral foundation: virtue-based ethical theories, duty-based ethical theories, or consequentialist ethical theories.  In this outstanding book, Wight (Univ. of Richmond) argues that economics is a normative science and that economic ethics necessarily requires all three moral theories (pluralism).  The most obvious strength of the book is that the author clearly explains the various schools of thought in both economics and ethics.  He also rigorously identifies the various issues that arise within normative economics.  Despite these strengths, the book does lean to the (Keynesian) political Left, inviting criticism from the Right, and favors Adam Smiths virtue-based moral theory.  Nevertheless, anyone who teaches courses on the interface between ethics and economics will find this book indispensable for its breadth, depth of analysis, and clarity of style.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.

The great recession of 20082010 increased unemployment substantially in the US and abroad.  But it also created employment for a plethora of scholars and journalists who delved into writing books about this period of US history.  Among them: Alan Blinder'sAfter the Music Stopped(CH, Sep'13, 51-0381), Martin Wolf'sThe Shifts and the Shocks(CH, Jan'15, 52-2671), James Galbraith'sThe Endof Normal (CH, Mar'15, 52-3758), and Noam Scheiber'sThe Escape Artists(CH, Oct'12, 50-0990).  Into this fray jumps Eichengreen (Univ. of California, Berkeley).  What sets this author apartother than more than 100 pages of endnotes, references, and an annotated listing of the complete cast of charactersis his insistence on contrasting the latest financial crisis with the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Hence the title (though Versailles wears it better) and inclusion of European officials.  Did policy makers in the 21st century learn from the mistakes made 80 years ago, or did they fall into the same traps?  In trying to answer that questionapart from some legerdemain and occasional overlooking of the vast changes in world economies in the last eight decadesEichengreen's contribution to understanding the past and hisen garde warnings for the future make this book one of the best.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.

Economic theory explains which choices best help people achieve their goals, and though economists have long recognized that people make mistakes, they assumed these mistakes canceled out in aggregate.  Using insights from psychology about how humans process information and make decisions, behavioral economics shows that these mistakes may not cancel each other out but can be predictably wrong in one direction.  In his book, Thaler (Univ. of Chicago; president, American Economic Association) recounts his central role and highlights the importance of collaboration and networking in the field's development.  Early chapters review central themes in behavioral economics, such as mental accounting, which ignores the fungibility of money; loss aversion, or the greater emotional impact losses have than gains; and self-control.  Although behavioral economics has challenged traditional economics, making practitioners more aware that traditional theory is limited when predicting how people act, it has not spawned an entirely reliable alternative economics.  Recent attempts to utilize insights of behavioral economicsnudgingto improve policy have occasionally had unintended consequences.  Thaler ends with a plea for economists to experiment and develop further evidence-based economics.  Full of anecdotes and stories, this well-written history of behavioral economics will prove valuable and comprehensible to all audiences.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Powell (Texas Tech Univ.) provides an economic explanation for the presence of sweatshops in the world.  Drawing on historical experiences of developed economies during the early stages of their development, the author argues that sweatshops provide opportunities for economies and that they will gradually disappear as countries mature.  Powell points out that misplaced sweatshop activism can do more harm than good because it may result in slowing down the economic development process.  In addition, sweatshops provide poor people in developing countries with better outcomes than the alternative of criminal activity (e.g., child and adult prostitution).  The author also takes a strong stance against slavery as he parallels it to labor exploitation.  At the end of the book, he offers suggestions for what activists can do to help poor workers in developing countries.  Well written and free of economic jargon, the book is accessible to a large audience.  Powell does not rely on mathematical modeling or quantitative methods but presents some basic economic principles to help elucidate his points.  The book is required reading for anyone interested in the issue of development in general and sweatshops in particular.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.

In this book, Kunnie (Univ. of Arizona), scholar of religion and indigenous peoples, educates, elucidates, and exposes an alternative meaning of globalization.  Sold to the world as gatherers of all, many globalization practices instead become medieval; those in the developed world lord it over the worlds impoverished and unhappy, who are unfortunate not from lack of capitalism but because of it.  Kunnie aims to focus attention on the reality that, like colonialism, the current globalizing habits of usurping sacred practices and knowledge of indigenous people and impoverishing them through expropriation of water, air, land, and other resources for "development" makes these people as expendable as the species of now-extinct animals.  In addition to describing the pitfalls of globalization, the author also includes thoughts on how to enact changes to this system.  This is a very scholarly rendering of the devastating tale told in Annie Leonard's short film "The Story of Stuff" (2007).  The book includes an extensive glossary of acronyms, notes, supporting tables and photos, and a bibliography, all well indexed.  Of abundant and renewable use to students of business, anthropology, economics, sociology, gender, and transnational and cultural studies as well as to practitioners and concerned human rights activists.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners; general readers.

As Greco (marketing, Fordham Univ.) explains in his account of his book's purpose, this is not a traditional history, economics, or mass communications book.  Instead, it draws upon eclectic disciplines and quantitative and qualitative methodologies in order to comprehendin the author's wordsthe people, trends, events, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats faced by the publishing and information industries and the financial service sector in the last few years.  Chapters encompass subjects such as the legal and economic foundation of intellectual property and copyrights; other chapters discuss the economics of the newspaper, magazine, and book publishing industries.  In his final chapter, the author considers the impact of recent US Supreme Court decisions on the publishing industry, especially concerning revisions in the copyright law that reflect the new digital landscape.  Replete with statistical tables, extensive footnotes, and appendixes, Greco's study makes one think.  The book is filled with fascinating information that makes readers aware that the publishing and information industry is exceedingly profitable.  An extensive, alphabetical, enumerative bibliography is followed by a helpful index.  Highly recommended for all those interested in learning about the publishing and information sectors.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers.

Peterson and Nadler (both, Harvard Univ.) have assembled a wide-ranging, informative, and important collection of essays on the threat government debts pose to federalism around the world.  The volume begins by reviewing the conflicts of interest between central and local governments that federalism must confront, particularly in terms of fiscal policy.  Following two introductory chapters, the first half of the volume (four chapters) provides a thorough treatment of US federalism, state debt, state pension obligations (mostly regarding underfunded public teacher pensions), and state default risk.  The second half of the volume (five chapters) describes the tenuous nature of federalism in the European Union, Germany, Spain, and Canada from historical, political, and economic perspectives.  This is an exceptional collection of essays for all academic levels, with important and fascinating accounts in each essay.  Peterson and Nadler have solicited an ideal assortment of case studies, providing readers with a wide range of historical circumstances that have led to similar, yet ultimately different, struggles for federalism around the world.Summing Up: Highly Recommended. All readers.

This very important book deserves a place in every library with an adult clientele.  Lebowitz (emer., Simon Fraser Univ., Canada) addresses issues generally excluded from public discourse.  With unsatisfactory market performance almost everywhere, people are becoming more open to alternative options to reorganizing production and fulfilling human potential, and this book makes an impassioned claim for the necessity of socialism.  Lebowitz is ideally suited to promote the dialogue: his writing style is clear and free of technical jargon, and he is well grounded in the nature of socialist organization, having served as an adviser to both Cuba and Venezuela.  Very few people have bothered to address the actual organization of socialism.  Even Marx avoided describing the specifics of how socialism would look, famously declaring, "I do not write cookbooks."  The closest Marx came to an exception was hisCritique of the Gotha Programme, a document opposing the Social Democrats' plan to merge with another party, which he considered opportunistic.  Lebowitz does an important service by bringing this document to public attention, and this bookwhich combines depth, insight, and clear writingmay be the first step in opening an essential dialogue about systemic transformation.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

This book is organized in an unusual but very effective way.  As the subtitle suggests, historian and literary biographer Davenport-Hines looks at the lives of his subject, though one might better call them the interrelated aspects of the life of his subject.  Because Keynes was the seminal economic thinker of the 20th century, books about him tend to be overly focused on his economic thought, losing or at least minimizing the fact that he was a polymath.  After exploring his youth, chapters in this text examine Keynes as (economic) pundit, public official, lover, connoisseur (his cultural attitudes and influence), and envoy (his efforts to restructure the British and world economy during WW II).  Although this approach necessitates recovering some chronological groundobviously he was a pundit and lover most of his lifethe author is quite successful in avoiding redundancy.  The result is that the intellectual, social, professional, and personal aspects of Keynes are described and analyzed both independently and as they interrelated to create a complex and brilliant thinker.  This is a splendid biography that will fascinate the general reader and give new insight to the scholar.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty; two-year technical students; general readers.

This book is a superb collection of 22 articles focusing on the social and moral content of capitalism.  Editor Otteson (political economy, Wake Forest Univ.), who wrote the books introduction, organized the articles into four categories dealing with the economic implications of liberty, equality, social order, and human motivation respectively.  What sets this book apart from other commentaries on capitalism is the way the history of economic thought is woven into the books discussion.  Five excerpts from Smiths two classic works and individual excerpts from Locke, Spencer, Rousseau, and Hume provide valuable background in the philosophical and historical roots of the study of market systems.  Articles by 20th-century analysts such as Schumpeter, Hayek, and Taylor, among others, build upon the ideas of those earlier thinkers.  An article by Thaler and Sunstein outlines the notion of libertarian paternalism.  Critical views are provided in excerpts from Marx and Mandeville, and arguments for socialism are considered in an article by Cohen.  At a time when economics education too often overlooks the history of economic thought, this volume provides a corrective that should be read by any serious observer of capitalism in the present time.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.